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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


















































































✓ 



































George Washington 















THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


BY 

CHARLES F. DOLE 

AUTHOR OF “THE NEW AMERICAN CITIZEN 


REVISED 

AND 

ENLARGED 


D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 


BOSTON 


NEW YORK 


CHICAGO 


Copyright, 1899, and 1922 

By D. C. HEATH & CO. 


2 H 2 


SEP 15 1322 . 

©CU681791 


■VD t 


THIS LITTLE BOOK 


3s HDetricateti 

TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF AMERICA 


INTO WHOSE KEEPING 
AS CITIZENS AND PATRIOTS 
WILL SOON BE GIVEN 
THE WELFARE OF OUR NATION 













































* I 

















PREFACE 


This book is intended as a reader for the school and home. 
The author believes that the subjects which it treats ought 
to be easily interesting to boys and girls. But they must 
not be presented as task work. It would defeat the pur¬ 
pose of the book to divide it into lessons. 

The aim should be to awaken the natural interest of the 
children in the things that concern the city and the nation. 
The only need is that the child shall understand what he 
reads. Encourage him to ask questions and to talk about 
the topics treated in the book; also to report and describe 
whatever he can see with his own eyes or learn for himself 
about any of these subjects. Develop his sense of pleasure 
in being a citizen and in looking forward to a citizen’s duties. 
Encourage especially the warm ethical and patriotic feeling, 
which moves instinctively with the growing consciousness 
of the child, that right and wrong are involved in politics. 
Let him see the ideals of cleanliness, public safety, pros¬ 
perity, and happiness, for the attainment of which govern¬ 
ments exist, and he will never easily descend to base and 
dishonorable conduct. Be sure that he grasps the idea not 
only that the State is for the sake of the individual, but also 
that the individual lives for the State; that duties go with 
rights; that there is no lasting satisfaction except in gen¬ 
erous and public-spirited conduct. Let him also early be 
helped to see that friendly cooperation, instead of jealousy, 


VI 


PREFACE 


suspicion and enmity, is the law of happiness and success 
not only for his own nation, but equally for all nations which 
make up the commonwealth of mankind. 

The author owes thanks to the late Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, 
a famous Mayor of New York City. His earnest concern 
in behalf of the multitudes of the children of his city, whose 
circumstances cut them off from completing their school 
course or taking any thorough training in civics, was a 
helpful incentive in preparing this book. 

C. F. D. 

Jamaica Plain, Mass., June, 1922. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Things That Belong to Us All . i 

II. What the Children Can Do for Their City 8 

III. What Schools and Teachers Are For .... 16 

IV. American Citizens. 23 

V. Who Patriots Are. 30 

VI. What We Are Here For. 44 

VII. Dangerous People. 52 

VIII. Traitors . 59 

IX. Our Friends Over the Seas. 65 

X. The Laws of the Land. 73 

XI. The Policemen and What They Are For. . 81 

XII. The Courts and Judges. 88 

XIII. Our Public Servants. 99 

XIV. The Mayor, or the Head Servant. 105 

XV. The City Fathers, or Keeping House for 

the People . in 

XVI. The Country People. 119 

XVII. Voting or Choosing our Leaders. 126 

XVIII. The People’s Money. 136 

vii 

















CONTENTS 


viii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. The Taxes, or Sharing and Sharing Alike 141 

XX. The City Beautiful, or What We Wish 

for our City . 148 

XXI. The Model Town. 158 

XXII. Our State and Our Governor. 167 

XXIII. The Head of the Nation . 178 

XXIV. The Army of Peace. 192 

XXV. How to Get on with People. 202 

XXVI. Summary: The Flag. 208 









TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS 
WHO READ THIS BOOK 


You have learned by this time something about 
the vast extent and the enormous natural riches of 
our country. You have seen on the map how it 
stretches through thousands of miles, from ocean 
to ocean. You have followed the courses of its 
great rivers. You know where its mountain ranges 
lie. You have read of its vast fields where cotton 
and corn and wheat grow for the millions of the 
world. 

You have seen in what States are mines of gold, 
silver, and copper, and, what is even more im¬ 
portant, of coal and iron. You know some of the 
cities where the great mills and factories are, and 
where they build the great ships. Perhaps no 
country has such extensive riches or so many happy 
homes. 

Let us see besides all these things what America 
has which makes it a good country to live in for 
men who come from every part of the earth to 
make their homes here. There are lands which 
have fertile soil and precious metals, but are 

ix 


X TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS 

not happy lands. China, for instance, has vast 
wealth, but no one wishes to go there to live. 

America has that which is better than riches. 
She has free men who possess the precious inheri¬ 
tance of liberty and just laws. She has the religion 
of the Golden Rule. Her history is full of splendid 
stories of patriotism and of public spirit. Her 
free government fits a brave and free people. 
Americans are a happy people, but they are not 
nearly as happy as they ought to be. There are, 
even in America, too many people who are extreme¬ 
ly poor. There are too many children in our land 
who do not have a fair chance to grow up strong 
and well and intelligent. Our laws are good, but 
they ought sometimes to be made better. 

This book is written to tell some of the things 
that you ought to know about our country. They 
are things that concern every boy and girl in 
the nation. They ought to make you feel very 
glad of our country, but, more than that, they 
should stir you all to do something to help make 
America a happier country in the twentieth century 
than it has ever yet been. They should plant a 
great desire to extend the blessings of our country to 
all the children of the world. 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


CHAPTER I 

The Things That Belong to Us All 

A great many things in our town belong to all 
the people. The schoolhouses with their desks and 
charts and blackboards, for instance, belong to the 
people. The fathers and mothers and older brothers 
of the children, and often men and women who have 
no children of their own, have paid their money to 
build the schoolhouses and to furnish them. They 
have sometimes made the schoolhouses a good deal 
better than their own homes. They have wished to 
make the children happy in their schools. 

No one can say of the schoolhouse, “It belongs to 
me,” or “It is mine.” The richest man in the town 
cannot say this any more than the poor man. But 
the poor man as well as the rich man may say, “This 
is ours: we own it together.” The children also can 
say, “These schoolhouses and all that is in them are 
ours.” 


2 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


The schoolhouses are not the only things that all 
of us own in common. Perhaps there are other 
buildings which belong to the people. In a large 
town there may be many such buildings; such as the 
police-stations, the houses for the fire-engines, the 
stables for the horses that draw the city carts, hospi¬ 
tals for the sick, garages and repair shops, pumping 
stations to force water to the highest parts of the 
town, and a City Hall full of offices. 

Perhaps some can think of other buildings which 
belong to the people. The buildings and houses 
owned by all of us in common are called public . 
This means that no one can ever say, “They are 
mine,” but all can say, “They are ours.” What¬ 
ever is public is for every one. 

To whom do the streets belong? To whom do the 
sidewalks and the curbstones and the street-lamps 
belong? 

The street does not belong only to the man who 
lives on it; the lamp-post does not belong only to 
the man whose door is lighted by the lamp. The 
teamsters, the errand-boys, the boys and girls who 
ride their bicycles to their playground, the people 
who live on the other side of the town, own the street 
as much as the men who live on it. Every one who 
walks out in the evening has a share in all the street- 
lamps. 


THE THINGS THAT BELONG TO US ALL 


3 



Philadelphia City Hall 

This building, which belongs to the citizens of Philadelphia, cost 
twenty million dollars. The tower is 548 feet high, and is surmounted 
by a statue of William Penn. Many less costly public buildings are 
more beautiful than this. 







4 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

Perhaps there is a Common, a Park, or a Public 
Garden in town; it may be that the land in it is 
worth a fortune; it may cost the city thousands of 
dollars every year to keep it in order. But no man 



Boston Public Garden 

This beautiful garden is in the heart of the city, and is free for 
everybody to enjoy. 


is so rich as to say, “It is mine.” Every child can 
say, “It is ours.” 

There may be a rule that no one shall pick the 
flowers in the Public Garden, or trample the grass. 
But this rule is not to keep us from our rights in 
the grass and the flowers. The rule is made in 






THE THINGS THAT BELONG TO US ALL 5 

order to give us our rights. It is intended to secure 
the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of 
people. Is it not better and fairer to give all of 
us an equal chance to see the flowers, than to let a 


A Well Kept Park 

No good citizen will drop papers or rubbish in a park, or do 
harm to the grass or shrubs or trees. 

few pick them and carry them away? The person 
who takes the flowers from the Public Garden seems 
to say, “The flowers are mine,” which is not the 
truth. 

No one has a right to carry away without permis¬ 
sion, and much less to injure, what belongs to us 





6 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


all. Is it not a very good notice which is said to 
be put up in the public parks of Australia, “ This is 
your property: therefore do not destroy it”? Uncle 
Sam has similar cheerful notices, for instance in the 
wonderful Yosemite Valley, now set apart for all 
time as a great playground for the nation. 

You see now what we mean by property . Property 
is that with which the owner may do as he pleases. 
Part of the property in town is private; that is, it 
belongs to some man or woman. A man’s clothes 
and tools and books and furniture are his private 
property. He may own a house or boat or garden. 
He can do what he pleases with these things; he can 
give them away or sell them. No one has any right 
to use them unless the owner gives him permission. 
But a large part of the property in town is public. 
It belongs to all of us in common. We can do what 
we please with it— not what any one person pleases, 
but what we all agree to do or to permit. 



The Grand Canon of the Yellowstone 

This beautiful scenery belongs to the people of the United States 
to enjoy forever. The big river leaps here three hundred feet into 
a deep channel or canon cut by the water in the rock. 






CHAPTER II 

What the Children Can Do for Their City 

If we traveled across the sea and wandered into 
a village in Africa, we should be amazed to see how 
the ignorant people live in the midst of dirt. They 
have no idea of health or tidiness. They throw 
bones and ashes, and all sorts of refuse, outside of 
their huts. The dogs are their only scavengers or 
health officers. This is the savage way of keeping a 
town. If the village becomes too bad to live in, 
huts do not cost much, and the people go to another 
place and build a new village. 

Not all the bad towns, however, are among sav¬ 
ages. We have heard of towns nearer than Asia 
or Africa where we would not choose to live. The 
streets are filthy and unwholesome; all sorts of 
rubbish are thrown into them; a lady would have 
to pick her way along the dirty sidewalks with great 
care amid orange peels and banana skins. 

What is it that makes such a city so disagreeable ? 
The trouble is, that the people are careless; they 
have no good rules about keeping their streets 
clean; or if they have rules, they break them, and 
8 


WHAT THE CHILDREN CAN DO 9 

scatter papers and various unsightly things in their 
streets, or they allow needless noises, such as the 
screeching of automobile horns. 

There are parts of towns, even in America, where 
a citizen would be greatly ashamed to take a visitor. 



See what a clean way is here used for handling the dirt of 
the streets. 

“What a dirty and tumble-down place this is!” 
the visitor would say. Or he would say, “How 
noisy and disorderly the people are!” Perhaps the 
stranger would observe pieces of glass in the street, 
and looking up would see that the street-lamp 






IO THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

had been broken. His friend would explain to him, 
“The boys down here break the city lamps.” 
Think of it; they do not know better than to de¬ 
stroy their own property! 

Perhaps the visitor would go into one of the 
schoolhouses. Suppose he should find the desks 
cut and the blackboards scratched and spoiled, 
and writing on the walls of the buildings. Suppose 
he should see boys walking or standing about with 
cigarettes in their mouths, or throwing stones at 
the lamp-posts. He would say, “I do not wish my 
children to come here to live.” 

How does a town get a bad name? It gets a bad 
name from the ill manners of its people, from the 
ugly look of its streets, sidewalks, and schoolhouses, 
and from the behavior of disorderly persons. 

How then can children help to give their town 
or their city a good.name? What can they do to 
make strangers and visitors enjoy coming and 
staying in the place? What will bring the right 
kind of people to live in the town? What can chil¬ 
dren do to make the town a fine home for themselves 
and their friends? 

The first thing they can do is to take good care of 
their own schoolhouses. If they do this they will 
never mar the walls, or cut and injure the desks, or 
make them unsightly. They will keep their desks 



WHAT THE CHILDREN CAN DO n 

in order; they will not mark their schoolbooks. 

They will see to it that their own sidewalks and 
the sidewalks about their schoolhouse are not 
littered with papers and rubbish. Let them talk 
and laugh in the streets as much as they like, but 
why should they offend their neighbors by making 


Beautiful School House and Grounds 
“Each the other adorning.” 

disagreeable noises? They ought to help to keep 
fine order on their way to and from school, and no 
one ought ever to wish to move away from the 
neighborhood of the schoolhouse on account of 
the boys. 

Do we like to have people respect us? Of course 
we do. Then we must respect ourselves too much 



12 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


to do mean things to others. If we like to have 
people respect us, we must show respect and kindly 
thought to them, and especially to strangers; to 
the people who wear plain clothes as well as to 
those who wear the latest fashions; to those who 
walk as well as to those who come in carriages. We 



At Recess 


On the playground all are equal in opportunity. 

want to be kind to all, but doubly kind if any one 
is lame, or sick, or unfortunate. 

Do we wish to be good Americans? Then we will 
never be less kind to any one on account of the color 
of his skin, whether it is brown, or yellow, or black, 
or white. All of us who wish our town to have a 
good name will treat others as we would wish to be 
treated if we ever went to live in a strange place, 




WHAT THE CHILDREN CAN DO 


13 


where no one knew us. Suppose all the other people 
in town were Russians or Chinese, and we were the 
only Americans, how would we like to be treated? 

Another way to make a good name for our town 
is to take good care of ourselves and of our clothes. 



Junior Citizens at Work 

Boys in every city and village can aid in making streets and 
gardens and homes more attractive. 


It is as good as a picture to see hundreds of tidy 
and clean children, with clean faces and clean 
shoes, looking happy and good-natured. It is like 
music to hear clean words and the pleasant voices 
of children. 

It would be wonderful to find a school where 





i 4 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

teachers and pupils all spoke in a cheerful and 
pleasant voice and no one used offensive words. 
Why not try for this? 

Why not set a fashion also against cigarettes and 
tobacco? Why should boys who want to grow strong 


Beauty in the Street 

Every good citizen will help to keep such streets free from litter. 

and be well, enfeeble themselves with tobacco? 
The doctors agree that as long as boys are growing, 
tobacco enfeebles them. They are also beginning 
to find out that tobacco, like other drugs, takes 
off the fine edge of a grown man’s power. When you 
see boys smoking you may know that they are not 




WHAT THE CHILDREN CAN DO 15 

being well brought up; when they are men they 
will lack manly vigor. It is a filthy habit that 
blows smoke into people’s faces and makes the 
smoker wish to be spitting all the time. 

The children in the schools are going to change 
every city in America for better or worse. They 
can make up their minds pretty early what 
kind of a city they intend to live in. They can 
determine that when they are old enough to vote, 
they will vote so as to make their city the cleanest 
and most beautiful place to live in. They can 
vote to have plenty of good water and bathhouses. 
They can vote to keep the streets well paved and 
brightly lighted. They can vote to get rid of the 
houses where disease lurks, and to let the light 
into the dark, damp places where it is not safe for 
little children to live. We want to raise up thou¬ 
sands of men who love and respect children. We 
need thousands of happy homes where everyone has 
plenty to eat and everyone is kind to the others. 

Voting on election days will not be enough to do 
all these things. It will cost a deal of money and 
we must all be willing to give our work and our 
money. Neither can we ever have a city good 
enough to live in, unless we are good enough to fit it. 


CHAPTER III 

What Schools and Teachers Are For 

Everywhere throughout the United States one 
sees schoolhouses. In many cities they are the 
finest and costliest buildings. The school property 
of our country is probably worth more than all the 
lands and farms and shops and palaces of many an 
ancient kingdom. All of the gold and silver that 
comes from all the mines in the land is hardly worth 
so much as the people spend every year in paying 
their teachers, and in making the schools comfort¬ 
able for the children. Many parents also, who are 
very poor, and who badly need the help of their 
boys and girls in earning money, go without their 
help in order to send them to school. In some States 
the laws require parents to send their children 
to school a certain number of weeks every year. 

What is the use of going to school? Why should 
the people pay such great sums of money for the 
sake of having good schools? Why would it not 
be as well to let the boys and girls go to school or 
not as they choose? How many children, we won¬ 
der, would like to be quite free of the duty of going 
to school? 

16 



WHAT SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS ARE FOR 17 

Let us try to think what would happen if all the 
schools were closed, and the millions of school 
children were sent into the streets or the fields, or 
were put to work. We do not need to suppose this. 
We need only to learn about Africa or Turkey, or 


State Education Building, Albany, N. Y. 

This whole building is used by those aiding in the education 
of the youth of the State. 

any barbarous country. We need only to read about 
England as it was less than a hundred years ago. The 
rich could go to school, but the children of the 
poor toiled in factories or in mines, and grew 
up in ignorance. Which are the best countries in 















18 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

the world to live in? They are those, like America, 
where the people take good care of their schools. 
Which are the best cities and towns in America? 
They are the places where the schools are the best. 

But why would it not be as well to let those 
children go to school who choose, and allow the 
others to play or to work? Suppose we tried this 
plan; and suppose that in the course of a few years, 
when the children grew up, we had two classes of 
people in the town — the educated and the igno¬ 
rant! You see, we do not want two different classes 
in America, one class superior to the other. We 
want all the people as well educated as possible. 

What will education do for us? some one asks; for 
it is hard work to sit still, to study, to work out 
questions in arithmetic, to write and to draw well. 

Education is power. It is power to earn money. 
What if a man does not know how to read? He 
will find a hundred doors to employment shut in 
his face. The more a boy knows, the more he is 
wanted. Can a boy write well and add up columns 
of figures without making a mistake? That boy, 
if he is honest, is wanted at once. There are not 
enough boys of this sort to fill the places. Can a 
girl draw well? Can she make designs? Is she 
quick to catch an idea? That girl will have better 
wages, the more skilful she becomes. Yes! Knowl- 



WHAT SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS ARE FOR 19 

edge is a kind of power. You store it up, as you 
store up electricity in a battery. But it is better 
than electricity, for power of that kind may be 
used up; but the more you use your knowledge, 
the greater the store becomes. 


Boys in the School Workshop 
Every boy should use his hands as well as his head. 

The country wants something more of its boys 
and girls than that they shall know how to earn a 
living and to enjoy themselves. It wants brave, 
intelligent, and noble citizens. Here is the great 
reason why every one must be sent to school. 

Suppose our people were as ignorant as most men 








20 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


were no longer ago than the Eighteenth Century. 
They could not even read the head-lines in the news¬ 
papers. They could not. read the names on the 
ballots on election day. Or, suppose they did not 
know the difference between the different parties; 
for example, between Republicans and Democrats 



and Socialists; suppose they did not know for what 
they were voting. The truth is, no one’s life or 
property is safe till the people know enough to 
vote for good men and just laws. 

Knowledge is the power to see what is good for 
the country or for the city. The ignorant man does 
not see what use there is in the schools. He does 








WHAT SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS ARE FOR 21 

not see why he should pay money for them. It 
may be that he does not see why he should obey 
the laws. 


We send our children to school in order that they 
may learn what the best things are for their city 



and for America. The more they know, the more 
they will want the best for their city — good roads, 
pure water, safety from fire and mischief, honest 
and truthful officers. The more they know, the 
better they will see what is good, not for the North 
alone, or the West, or for New York, or Iowa, but 
for all the people of America. 

We want more than knowledge. We want friend- 








22 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


liness. The schools teach us not to be mean, stingy, 
and selfish, but just the opposite. All the children 
are comrades. 

We do not ask in our American schools who a 
boy’s father is, or who a girl’s grandmother was. 
We all meet on one level as fellow-learners. We 
want what is good, not for one, but for all. We 
learn to become friends of one another. We are 
friends also of all the school children. Throughout 
the United States they are like us. They learn the 
same lessons, they salute the same flag; they are 
all learning, as we are, to become true-hearted 
Americans. 

There was a queer, false notion once, that teachers 
and pupils were against each other. The pupils tried 
to make trouble for the teachers, and the teachers 
often treated the pupils roughly. Sometimes they 
forgot that they had ever been children themselves. 
We do not believe any longer in America that 
teachers and pupils are against each other. The 
teachers and the children ought to be good friends. 

We do not wish to break the will of an American 
boy or girl. We wish a boy or girl to have a very 
strong will. We only ask that it shall be a good will 
— the will to help, the will to make the school a 
splendid success, the will to learn; a friendly will 
toward all, a will to be honorable and useful. 


CHAPTER IV 
American Citizens 

Who have the right to be called true American 
citizens? Perhaps some one will say, “I have the 
best right to be called an American. My family 
is one of the oldest in the country. My ancestors 
came over here when there were only a few Indians 
on these shores. One of my forefathers came in the 
famous little ship Mayflower. One of my great- 
great-grandfathers came from Holland with the 
Dutch settlers, who founded the state of New York. 
Some of the men of my family fought with Wash¬ 
ington in the war for freedom. I have the right to 
belong to the Sons (or the Daughters) of the Ameri¬ 
can Revolution.” 

All this is very interesting, but what do you think 
the Indian chief Massasoit, who helped eat the first 
Thanksgiving dinner in America, would say to this 
fine speech? We can guess, if Massasoit could speak, 
what he would answer back to the boy or girl who 
wants to be thought a better American citizen than 
the other children. “Your father,” the big Indian 
might say, “came here to my land a stranger and 

2 3 


24 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


very poor. I could have gathered my warriors and 
driven him and his friends into the sea. But I 
pitied them and helped them. My fathers had 
been in this land for countless years. We were the 
first and true Americans. We owned the corn-fields; 
we let the white men share the land with us. What 
right have you boys and girls, whose forefathers 
were strangers and emigrants, to set yourselves up 
as better Americans than others? ” 

We may begin to hear other voices speak along 
with the old Indian chief. There was a famous 
American named Alexander Hamilton. He lived in 
New York. He was a great friend of Washington, 
and one of his assistants. He was one of the ablest 
and brightest men of his time, and he helped to es¬ 
tablish our Republic. But he was born in one of 
the West India Islands. His father was a Scotchman 
and his mother was French. He came from home 
to a school in New Jersey when he was only a boy. 

Let us hear what he would say to the boys and 
girls who think that they are better Americans be¬ 
cause their families have been longer in the country. 

“Do you mean to tell us,” Hamilton would say, 
“that your people loved America more, or did her 
more stalwart service, than I did? What stories I 
could tell you children about the brave deeds of my 
friends, who, like me, were immigrants to America. 
Was there ever a better American than the great- 


AMERICAN CITIZENS 


2 5 

hearted Baron DeKalb, who came over here ready 
to die for liberty?” 

And now others speak to us, “We came over 



While still a student, Hamilton wrote such able articles 
in defense of the colonies that they were thought to be 
the work of a mature statesman. 

strangers and immigrants, like your ancestors, from 
Ireland, England, Norway and many another home 
in the old countries. You needed us, and we helped 
you in all kinds of service. Thousands of us have 






26 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


worked for America. You needed us in your mines 
and on your railroads. Where do you find any men 
and women who love the flag more than we do? 



John Boyle O’Reilly 

Mr. O’Reilly was an American citizen, “by adoption,” 
as we say. He was born in Ireland and risked his life for 
what he thought his duty to the Irish people. When he 
came to America he gave his whole heart for the good of 
the American people. 

Do you think you can find any better Americans 
than John Boyle O’Reilly or Carl Schurz?” 

The truth is, we cannot make any division in 
America because some families have been here longer 





AMERICAN CITIZENS 27 

than others. The Indians would certainly be the best 
Americans, if we valued our citizens for the length 
of time their families have lived in this country. 
Neither can we call some boys and girls better 


Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York Harbor 

Immigrants come to our shores in great shiploads. Whole families, 
parents, grandparents, and little children, often come together. From 
what distant land do they not come with high hope of America! 

Americans than others, for what their forefathers 
did. Suppose there was a great-grandson of Wash¬ 
ington in our school, and suppose he was tardy every 
few days, and did not learn his lessons, and diso- 













28 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


beyed the rules, and made the teachers trouble, and 
was uncivil to strangers in the street; and suppose 
that there was by his side at school a little Italian 
or Russian or Jewish boy, who had just come over 
here, but who was prompt and faithful and obedient 
and good-tempered; this young Washington would 
not be so good an American as the other boy. 

Whom, then, shall we call the best American 
citizen? Who is the best kind of pupil to have in 
the school? We do not ask who gets the best marks, 
or learns the lessons quickest, or makes the fewest 
mistakes. We mean the best all-round boy or girl, 
good in school and good in games too, whom the 
teacher likes, but whom the children like also, 
friendly and helpful at home as well as at school, 
kind and brave, honest and generous. 

Show us boys and girls like this, and we will tell 
you who will make the very best American citizens. 
We do not care in what land across the ocean their 
parents were born, or what language they can speak 
besides our common English tongue. We do not 
care whether they are rich or poor. 

Teach them the common language so that we 
can all understand each other; teach them also other 
languages that contain a great literature. Teach 
them about our history; it belongs to all of us 
in common. Tell them the stories of our noblest 


AMERICAN CITIZENS 


29 

leaders and teachers, our poets and prophets, our 
inventors and men of science, our lovers and helpers 
of men. Show them what kind of a country we are 
trying to make of America — the land of happy 
homes, the land of beautiful cities, the land of free¬ 
dom and justice. Give us plenty of true-hearted 
boys and girls, thousands and millions of them, and 
we will have in a few years the very best American 
citizens. 



Bunker Hill Monument 

How many of the pupils can tell the story of Bunker 
Hill? The great monument is 224 feet high. There is a 
stone staircase to the top of it, where one can have a grand 
view over the ocean and all about Boston. 


CHAPTER V 
Who Patriots Are 

Who are the patriots in America? No doubt 
many would answer at once, “The patriots are the 
men who fight for their country; the men who stood 
with Warren on Bunker Hill, and with Sumter 
and Marion and Morgan in the Carolinas; the men 
who made Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown; the 
sailors who fought alongside of Paul Jones; the 
sailors on the good ship Constitution; all the soldiers 
and sailors who gave their lives for duty in the time 
of the Civil War.” 

“Yes,” some would say, “ the men who rode with 
Custer on the plains of the far West, Dewey and his 
men at Manila, Roosevelt and Hobson at Santiago, 
— all these were patriots. They were the same 
kind of patriots as the famous Spartans who died 
ages ago at the Pass of Thermopylae 1 over in Greece, 
of whom the orators and poets have spoken and 
sung ever since.” 

Millions again join in the cry “Remember the 
men who fought in the Great War over in France.” 

1 The Greek word Thermopylae means the Hot Springs. 

3o 


WHO PATRIOTS ARE 


3i 


No doubt a multitude of men are always willing to 
fight, if they believe that fighting will do their 
country any good. Every nation produces such men. 
Indeed it is dreadful to think that brave men should 
ever be required to kill one another. It is dreadful 



Martha Washington 


to discover how often selfishness has dragged nations 
into war and sacrificed hosts of splendid youths. 

There is something wrong in thinking that patriots 
must be soldiers and sailors. What shall we say of 
the women who do not fight? What shall we call 
Martha Washington, who had to stay at home while 





3 2 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


her husband was at Valley Forge? What shall we 
call the thousands of women who, on both sides 
in every war, have sent their sons at the call of 
their government. Indeed, in the great European 



Benjamin Franklin 


Born a poor boy, he became famous in Europe as well 
as America. He was a pioneer in the history of news¬ 
papers, of the post-office, of almanacs for the people, and 
of electrical science. 

war thousands of women filled the hospitals with 
their faithful helpfulness to the sick and wounded 
men. Were not these women as good patriots as 
their husbands and brothers? Indeed the women 




WHO PATRIOTS ARE 


33 


often had the hardest time. They had to carry on 
farms and shops, while the men were away; they 
suffered from anxiety and loneliness. For many a 
brave woman it would have been easier to die her¬ 
self, than to send her boy away to die with wounds 



Ulysses S. Grant 


or with fever. We must surely call all brave women 
patriots who love their country well enough to endure 
any hardship required of them for its welfare. 

We must not forget a multitude of men who, 
even in the War of the Revolution and in the great 
Civil War, were never soldiers or sailors, and yet 






34 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

were patriots. There was Benjamin Franklin, for 
instance. He did not fight, but who loved America 
better than he? If it had not been for his services 
at the French king’s court, no one knows how many 
weary years the War of Independence might have 


Robert Morris 

Morris was a Philadelphia man. He was rich, and willingly risked 
his fortune to help raise money to pay Washington’s soldiers. 

lasted, and Franklin detested war and said “ there 
was never a good war.” 

There was Samuel Adams — who ever heard of 
his fighting a battle? But he was as brave and sturdy 
a patriot as any soldier could be. There was Wash¬ 
ington’s friend, Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who 






WHO PATRIOTS ARE 35 

helped get money to pay the soldiers who fought for 
our independence. 

Where, indeed, in the time of war would all the 
wheat and beef come from to feed the army, and 
the clothing to keep the men warm, if there were no 
patriots hard at work on their farms and in their 


Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge 
shops? Who shall say that the men at home do 
not love their country as well as the men who fight 
in the field? Why is it not good patriotism to work 
for the country and pay taxes cheerfully for the 
needs of the government? 

We must not forget another set of good patriots 
in the times of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge. They 
were children who were not yet old enough to know 





36 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

what the grown people were seeking to do. These 
boys and girls, all the way from Portland to Sa¬ 
vannah, rushed out, you may be sure whenever a 
horseman came riding into the village bearing news 



Robert E. Lee 


General Lee accepted the results of the Civil War 
in the spirit of a hero, and afterwards devoted his 
rare intelligence and noble character to the work of 
education in his own State of Virginia. 

of the war. They helped their mothers and sisters 
while their fathers were away. They were full of 
gladness, too, when at last the long war was over, 
and by and by they told their children the stories 




WHO PATRIOTS ARE 


37 


that their fathers had told them—about the 
troublous and dreadful years of the war, and the 
heavy cost of blood and suffering that they had 
spent in the name of liberty. 



Thomas Jefferson 

Jefferson was one of the great men of Virginia. Few men 
ever did more for the country or loved its liberties better than 
this hero of peace. He was the third of our Presidents. 

Were there no patriot boys and girls also on the 
side that was beaten in the Revolution? Were none 
of the men patriots who believed it their duty to 
go into exile rather than to fight against their mother 
country? Suppose a man is mistaken, or is on the 






THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


38 

losing side, cannot he still be a patriot, if he truly 
loves his country? Surely the courage and chivalry 
of such men as General Lee and Stonewall Jackson, 
as well as the heroism and good temper of true men 
in the North, now help us all to respect one another 
as fellow-citizens of a common nation. We must 
recollect too that Germans and Austrians gave 
their lives in the Great War as willingly as the 
men on the side of the Allies. We hope for the 
good time coming, when all men will be unwilling 
to fight one another. Let us never forget that men 
may be earnest patriots, even when w T e do not happen 
to agree with them. Who is wise or good enough 
never to make a mistake? 

We are on the right track now to find out who 
patriots are. It was quite a mistake to suppose that 
patriots must be fighters, or that they must live in a 
time of war. Through all the history of our coun¬ 
try, from the Declaration of Independence to the 
present year, we have lived most of the time with¬ 
out war. Most of the time we have had only a few 
soldiers, and we have had very little for them to do. 
The fact is, we are not a fighting people. Why 
should any one want to go to war, and burn towns 
and kill men? That is what barbarous people do, 
but we in America propose to live like civilized men. 
We do not believe in fighting, or in having enemies 



Nathan Hale 

Who nobly said, “I only regret that I have but one life to 
lose for my country.” 





40 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


anywhere. We are bound to put an end to war. 
We are coming to see that there is always a nobler 
way than to fight. 

The truth is, that when people fight, they are sure 
to do awful injustice and especially to innocent 
people. We Americans are already ashamed of our 
cruel wars against the Indians. Selfish men wanted 
their lands and we often broke our treaties with 
the Indians and provoked them to fight. 

Do you not see now that the millions of Americans 
who have lived in the times when there was no war, 
were just as good patriots as ever lived or fought? 
To be a patriot is to love one’s country; it is to be 
ready and willing, if need comes, to die for the 
country, as a good seaman would die to save his 
ship and his crew. We think that the seaman should 
be willing to die, but we do not wish him to die. 
We wish him to be skilful enough to keep clear of 
the dangerous ledges, and to live, and to bring his 
ship safely into port, voyage after voyage. So we 
do not wish the good citizens to die for their country, 
but we wish them to be just and fair and wise, and 
to treat the people of other nations generously like 
friends. Surely Washington and Grant were as true 
patriots when the country was at peace as when it 
was at war. 

Yes! To love our country, to work so as to make 



Abraham Lincoln 

See what a kind, rugged, homely face this is. No one was ever a better 
friend of the people. Find what you can about his boyhood. 





42 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


it strong and prosperous, to support honest govern¬ 
ment, to obey righteous laws, to pay our taxes fairly 
into its treasury, to treat our fellow-citizens as we like 
to be treated ourselves; yes, to treat the men of 
every nation as fellow-men — this is to be good 
American patriots. 

“Ah!” some one may say, “did not the men and 
women have to be braver in the war times than in 
time of peace? ” Let us stamp that as false. What 
a terrible thing it would be to be brave, if bravery 
requires of us to hurt and kill! Is it not brave to 
try to save life? Thousands of brave men are risking 
their lives every day to help men and to save us 
all from harm. Brave doctors and nurses go where 
deadly disease is, and are not afraid to help save 
the sick. Brave students are trying perilous ex¬ 
periments, so as to find out better knowledge for us 
all. 

Brave engineers on thousands of locomotives are 
not afraid of sudden death if they can save their 
passengers from harmful accidents. Brave sailors 
are always facing the sea and the storm. Brave 
firemen stand ready to die to bring little children 
safely out of burning buildings. Brave boys every 
summer risk their lives to save their comrades from 
drowning. Brave fellows hold in check maddened 
horses and prevent them from running away with 


WHO PATRIOTS ARE 43 

women and children. Brave women risk their 
own lives daily for the sake of others. 

Wherever we see a brave man, or woman, or 
child, there we look for a patriot. Whoever is brave 
to help others will be brave also for the sake of his 
country. Never forget it: it is beautiful to be 
brave to help men, but it is terrible to use power 
to harm them. 


CHAPTER VI 
What We Are Here For 

It is time to ask a great question. What are we 
here in this world for? What do we propose to do 
in the world? What is it to succeed in life? These 
are different forms of the one great question: What 
are we here for? Every child ought to have an 
answer for it. 

Some people seem to think that we are here to 
get all that we can for ouselves, like greedy boys at 
a picnic. The greedy boy fancies that the picnic 
is all for him, and he tries to help himself to every¬ 
thing and to get more than his share. But if all the 
children at a picnic were greedy and selfish and no 
one stopped to think of the others, no one could 
have a picnic. No one would care to provide cake 
and pies and candy for a horde of greedy children. 

We do not like greedy boys and girls or selfish 
men and women. Does anyone think that we live 
to get as much money as we can or all sorts of costly 
things — palaces to live m and fur coats to wear 
for show and new limousines every season? Do you 
think the richest man in the city succeeds best? 

44 


WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR 


45 



Who of us would be willing to cheat or do injustice 
or tell falsehoods or neglect his friends for the sake 
of getting money? No one. If we want money, it is 
because we wish to use it, to be generous with it, 
to share what it brings with our friends, to do 


Honeycomb 

The bees in the hive work together helpfully. 

something handsome for our town. Least of all do 
we want to get money which we have never deserved, 
and which rightly belongs to others. 

How many of us have ever watched the ants at 
work building their houses, or the bees getting in 
their winter stores of honey? An old writer says: 
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” He meant to stir 
up the sleepy-heads to get up early and do something. 





















THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


46 

But we are thinking of something better than the 
tireless industry of the ants and the bees. What 
is all their industry for? It is a marvelous example 
of what we call in the sports team-work. The ant¬ 
hill is a tiny city. The ants are all at work for one 
another, or rather, for their city. The bees are 
busy for their hive—another populous little city. 
They seem never to take any holidays. They work 
with all their strength and carry big loads and use a 
deal of intelligence. They are ready to die for their 
city. Who ever sees any selfishness in them? 

Suppose one of the ants said, “What am I get¬ 
ting out of this hard work? I will run away and 
have a good time. I will forage for myself.” 
The fact is that the ants all get their living and 
enough for all by working together. This is the 
wonderful law of team-work. If the ants or bees 
ceased to obey this law of their life, they would 
perish from the earth. The law means Each for all 
and all for each. The little insects make a society 
together. Now, something like this is the law that 
binds men. Men can never be happy or successful 
until they discover this law and obey it. 

See how this works in the family. What do the 
father and mother live for? To get as much as each 
can of all the nice things, and to help themselves 
first? No. They live for each other, and for the 



WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR 47 

children, for the friends also who visit them. The 
parents want every one in the house to be happy 
and strong. What are the children in the home for? 
Each for himself, to be fed and waited upon and 
to have their own way? There are families who 


Team-work 

Each team pulls together in order to succeed. 

seem to try to get on in this way. But they never 
succeed in being happy. No. The same rule holds 
here that binds the bees in the hive, Each for all 
and all for each. The father brings home what he 
can for the wife and the children: the mother plans 
for all; even the visitors and helpers do their best, 
while they stay, to make the home orderly and cheer- 




THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


48 

ful and happy. Everyone thinks about the others 
and loves to help them. Whoever does this is pretty 
sure to be busy and happy too. The more each tries 
to do for the others, the more the others can do, and 
the more the whole family has to use and enjoy. 
This is the pattern of every good kind of society, — 
clubs, churches, schools, work-shops, ship-yards, 
savings-banks, labor unions, cities, nations. We 
pull together, and we have plenty of everything; 
we enjoy each other so and we have a civilized and 
happy world. We fall apart, and we have poverty 
and peril of our lives, and we make a cruel, savage 
world. 

Why do we have rules in the home? Why must 
children keep things in their place, and be punctual 
at meal-time, and gentle to the grandmother and 
the little ones? The rules are not meant to make us 
uncomfortable, but the rules are the ways to help 
everyone, old and young, to do his part and keep 
the home happy. A good rule is like a good road 
for the wheels to run upon. The rules are meant to 
give every one his share and his rights. How do we 
get our rights in the home? Not by grabbing things, 
not by violence, not by noise and rudeness and 
complaining, but by taking pains to give everyone 
else his rights and his full share, and by keeping 
the rules of the hive, made for the good of all of us. 



WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR 40 

This is the law of team-work. What is best for the 
team is best for every boy who plays the game. No 
boy has any right to play who will not keep the 
rules of the game. 


Working Together 

In a factory each works at a common task, and all together 
accomplish what is intended. 

The law of the schoolroom is the same. It is 
not the teachers’ school. The teachers are there 
for the sake of the boys and girls. They are not 
there to earn their living, but first and above all to 
teach the children all they know. The good school 
is a piece of team-work, like the bee-hive. Whoever 
does the best for the school, keeps its order, obeys 
its rules and gets his lessons, at the same time gets 







50 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

the most satisfaction out of the school, and at 
times fun also. 

A good mill or store or factory is like this. It 
is a great team of hundreds or thousand of workers, 
playing together to turn out the best possible flour 
or tools or boots, and to supply people like us all 
over the world. What is good for the workers is 
good for the superintendent or the owners of the 
mill, and nothing is really good for the men who di¬ 
rect the work that is not the best thing for the work¬ 
ers too. They work, not first to get their own living 
and then to serve the rest of us afterwards, but they 
have to work first, to serve everyone who uses the 
flour or the tools or the shoes. If they do this with 
all their might, they will deserve and get their own 
living and help also to make the whole country 
prosper. 

The town or the city — New York City, for in¬ 
stance — is another vast team, with its millions 
of people, building streets and laying out parks 
and erecting schoolhouses for the good of all the 
people — for every little child and for every stranger 
or visitor who comes to New York. The city desires 
to take the very best care of its people and their 
guests. Each child can help a little toward this. 
A rude or noisy boy, an untidy girl, or a dishonest 
child does harm to the whole city. It does not 


WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR 


5i 


take many such children to give a bad name to a 
town. But courteous and good-natured children 
are its glory. 

The nation is a still bigger family; the United 
States is made up of thousands of towns and mil¬ 
lions of little families. The law of good team-work 
binds us all. Who wishes to live idly off the labor of 
other men or women? This is just as if a lazy, 
selfish bee gave up working for the hive and tried 
to seize the honey for himself. The bees would not 
keep it in the hive! 

We shall see by and by that the world of men is 
a greater city or family. Whatever hurts one nation 
hurts all the rest. Whoever does his part to help 
his own nation helps the people who live over the 
seas in China or Africa. Every tiny stream helps 
to keep the ocean full. 


CHAPTER VII 
Dangerous People 

Our country is very large; it has many millions 
of people; it contains great cities; it is rich in its 
fertile fields, in its forests and mines, in its great 
factories, its workshops, its railroads, and its ships. 
But we must not think because our country is strong 
and rich that it is safe from dangers. Let us see 
what the dangers are against which America asks 
its sons and daughters to help make it safe. 

In the first place, there are great multitudes of 
ignorant people in our country. Many of them are 
so ignorant that they cannot even read or write their 
own names. Some of these very ignorant men and 
women live in towns and cities and pass schoolhouses 
every day as they go to their work. Others live on 
farms scattered all over the land; sometimes they 
are miles away from any school; their children 
grow up as ignorant as the parents are. If we could 
gather together all these people who cannot read 
and have them march ten abreast, they would make 
a procession hundreds of miles in length. 

We must not blame these ignorant fellow-citizens 
52 


DANGEROUS PEOPLE 


53 


of ours for not having gone to school. Most of 
them never had a fair chance to learn. The parents 
of some of them were born in slavery. Some of 
them were born in foreign lands, where there were 
no schools except for the rich. Some of them had to 



Removing the Danger of Ignorance 
An ignorant citizen is a dangerous citizen. 


go to work when they were little and were never 
afterward able to leave off work to go to school. In 
parts of our own country, the schools are open for 
only one short term each year, and the children are 
apt to forget what they have learned before they 
have the chance to go to school again. 




54 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


Of course there are some people who are ignorant 
because they did not want to go to school, or be¬ 
cause they played truant. But on the whole we 
must pity the ignorant people rather than blame 
them. Most of us would have been ignorant too, if 
we had been brought up far away from any good 
schools, or in homes where no one ever taught us 
to read. 

It is extremely dangerous to America to have 
whole armies of ignorant people. The danger is not 
because ignorant people wish to do wrong. They 
may earnestly wish to do right. The danger is that 
they cannot easily tell what is right, or what is 
best for the city and the country. They hear one 
side of a question, but they cannot read, so as to 
know about the other side and make up their minds 
fairly. 

The ignorant have to act and sometimes to vote, 
without knowing what harm their actions or their 
votes will do. Vain or selfish men lead them astray, 
and because of their ignorance they never find out 
how they are being used for evil purposes. Ignorant 
people are more easily excited than the intelligent. 
They lose their heads, and then they do things 
which work mischief; perhaps they destroy prop¬ 
erty, or even take life. They may be very sorry 
afterwards, but it is too late to repair the damage. 


DANGEROUS PEOPLE 


55 



A Group op Loapers 


Why are these men dangerous to the city? Not surely because they 
are poor, or because they are ill dressed, but because they are idle 
and lazy and mean. Is there one of them who looks as if he had ever 
earned an honest living? The loafer likes to get his living for nothing. 


Many a time has war come about on account of the 
sudden passions of ignorant men. 

Moreover, it is hard to find work enough for a 
great mass of ignorant people to do. They cannot do 





THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


56 

skilful or nice work, and there is not enough rude 
work like digging to keep them busy all the time. 
This want of work makes them poor, and keeps them 
poor, and the poorer they are, the harder it is for 
them to give their children any help toward an 
education. 

The ignorant people are not our enemies; we all 
wish to help and befriend them. But ignorance is 
an enemy of our country. We must unite to drive it 
out of our land. We must all be torch-bearers and 
flood the darkness with light. We cannot afford to 
have any of our people poor and miserable. 

Ignorance is not our only enemy. There are 
violent and hurtful people whom nobody wants for 
neighbors. There are tricky and dishonest people, 
of whom we have to beware lest they rob and cheat 
us. Wherever men get intoxicating drinks they make 
life very wretched for every one who has to live with 
them. There are idle and lazy people who sponge 
on their friends and relatives, and manage to get 
a living without working for it. 

“Yes,” you say, “these people are dangerous for 
their neighbors, and even for their own families, 
but how are they dangerous to America?” Why! 
These lazy, drinking, passionate, or tricky people 
are a part of America. They are like sores on a 
man’s body. If he has even a few sores, he is un- 


DANGEROUS PEOPLE 


57 

comfortable, but if he has many, they sap his 
strength, and after a while if they increase, they 
kill him. 

The ignorant and lazy get into office — even into 
school committees — 
and are permitted to 
take a hand in mak¬ 
ing our laws. But 
how can dishonest 
men make honest 
laws? What if the 
idle and the tricky 
men are allowed to 
manage our towns 
and spend and waste 
the people’s money? 

When bad men get 
the places of honor 
and trust, it is as if 
sores fastened them¬ 
selves to a man’s 
heart and lungs. So 
it kills a nation if 
the people let the 



The Pillory 

See what cruel and shameful punish¬ 
ments our forefathers used to inflict. 
Do you suppose it ever made people 
better to treat them in this way? 


selfish and the careless take charge of the great and 
costly machinery of the government. 

We are not saying that the idle and the dishonest 
























THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


58 

people mean to do all this harm to their country. 
Some of them are too ignorant to know how mean 
it is to get a living out of other people. They have 
never been told that ugliness, quarrelsomeness, 
drunkenness, cheating, and sponging are diseases. 
They have never been told that the mean, dishonest, 
and idle are a great load that the nation has to 
carry on its shoulders. 

Perhaps we ought to pity these hurtful people 
just as we pity the ignorant and the sick. But 
whether we blame them or pity them, they are no 
less dangerous to America. As we love our country 
and wish to see it strong and great, we must con¬ 
trive to kill out the cheating and laziness and the 
coarse talk and ugly manners and cruelty that 
sometimes disgrace our American towns. It is not 
so shameful to be barbarians, who often have a good 
deal of honesty and kindliness and politeness too, 
as it is to pretend to be civilized and superior to 
others and to have good laws and yet not to obey 
them. 


CHAPTER VIII 
Traitors 

Every one has heard the story of Benedict 
Arnold. He began by being a patriot. It was a 
great pity that he did not die in the battle of Sara¬ 
toga, which he had helped so gallantly to win. But 
he fell into a great temptation, and betrayed the 
cause of his country. This was treason , and his 
name comes first in our minds when we think of a 
great traitor. 

It is not only in war that a man may be a 
traitor to his country as Benedict Arnold was. A 
man may commit treason against his country in 
time of peace. See how this may be. 

Treason is to go over to the side of the enemy. 
But what are the worst enemies of America? Our 
enemies are not across the ocean; they are here 
with us. We have already found out what they are. 
They are injustice, dishonesty, lying, lawlessness, 
greed, and selfishness. These enemies live in the 
hearts of men and women. Suppose all the millions 
of our American people should fight these enemies, 
and drive them out; or, what is the same thing, 

59 


6o 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


suppose our people should go over to the side of 
the true men, the faithful, the generous, that is, to 
the side of the patriots. Then no possible harm 
could come to our country. A nation of honest, just, 
true-hearted, and friendly people is invincible. No 
one ever wishes to do them harm. They have no 
enemies. 

There are many ways in which men come to 
betray their country without intending it. Thus, 
men sometimes want so much to be elected to 
office — to be chosen mayor, or to be made a judge 
— that they do mean things in order to win; and 
men in office aid and vote, and even trade w T ith 
their votes, for their own selfish interest, or for 
their party, and not for the good of the people. Is 
it not a kind of treason, wffien a man has promised 
to do his best for the good of all of us, and he 
is willing to sacrifice the public good for his own 
gain? It was a fine word that the famous Senator 
Henry Clay of Kentucky said, “ Sir, I would rather 
be right than be President.” And we recall that 
when Abraham Lincoln was a candidate for the 
Senate of the United States, he insisted in telling 
the people exactly what he believed to be true, and 
lost his election for doing this. 

No enemy outside is so dangerous as selfish and 
dishonest citizens are. Hear now wdiat the country 


TRAITORS 


61 

says to the children whom it is educating. Their 
country says to them, “We depend on the men and 
women who have had your splendid education to 
stand for the laws, to be faithful to your duties, 
to be kind and generous, to help and get and sup- 



Lincoln Memorial at Washington 

This beautiful memorial is the nation’s tribute to the memory of one 
of the greatest and most unselfish of men. 


port good officers, to secure admirable goverment, 
to do your share, and a little more than your share, 
to make America the noblest land in the world.” 

That is what the country says to its educated 
men and women. What shall we think of people who 
will not heed this call? We must set them with 
Benedict Arnold. They may not be able to do as 








62 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


much mischief as he did. They may not actually 
kill men. But such men as these are always trying 
in one way or another to use the government for 
themselves, to make money, or get the offices. Some 
of these same bad citizens, are so careless as to have 
nothing to do with the government of their own 
town. They are too busy with their own affairs, or 
too lazy, to give any time to the good of the people; 
they often will not vote. These are no patriots. 
Genuine patriots will do anything you ask for the 
welfare of their people. They are constantly plan¬ 
ning not only for their own children, but also for the 
benefit of other people’s children. 

What we have said about traitors and patriots 
comes straight home to the school children. We 
might forgive some poor Armenian, who came over 
here too ignorant to know anything of our American 
history, or some African whose forefathers had been 
slaves, if he voted for mean men and unjust acts. 
We could even forgive him if he thought that the 
government was intended to give an idle man a living. 

But we could not well forgive one of our own 
children, trained in our public schools, if he should 
go over to the enemy. Our schools teach them that 
the government is for the sake of us all, like the 
reservoir of water that fills all the great mains of 
the city and supplies every faucet in every house. 


TRAITORS 


63 

What an outrage it would be if some one should 
waste or pollute the water that belongs to us all! 

There are young men in our cities who were born 
of our most honorable families. Their parents have 
often been very generous and public-spirited. They 



Clara Barton 

The daughter of a prosperous family, estab¬ 
lished the Red Cross in America, and “was on the 
firing line for humanity all her life.” 

have had great wealth; they have given their boys 
every advantage; they have sent them to the great 
universities. These boys have learned what America 
asks of her sons. You will not envy these boys 
when you are told that they have been living the 





64 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


lives of traitors to their country. They are often 
as idle as any tramp on the streets. They hang 
around their fine club-houses and do nothing but 
smoke and drink and talk. They have never tried 
to do anything for the public good; they have drawn 
the water freely from the great reservoir, and they 
are not willing to pay their share for it, or to help 
keep the great mains in repair. 

What a chance these boys would have if they 
would stop acting the part of traitors! They might 
use their money to give better education for the 
people. They might use some of their time for the 
public service. They might join hands and save 
their city from misrule and waste. They might 
take the lead in giving America the best government 
that the world ever saw. Let us be glad that some 
of the rich young men are trying to do this very 
thing! 


CHAPTER IX 


Our Friends Over the Seas 

The time was, when the whole world was divided 
into warring cities and kingdoms. If a man from 
the Hebrew land went up to Samaria or over to 
Damascus, he took his life in his hand. So if an 
Egyptian went over the sea to the Island of Cyprus 
or to Greece, he travelled at great risk. The little 
country of Greece was once full of cities unfriendly 
to each other. An Athenian would have found ene¬ 
mies in Sparta or Thebes. Even a hundred years 
ago the map of Europe was cut up into a great many 
little states, each with its separate laws and gov¬ 
ernments. There were many little German states. 
If you travelled from one to another you had to 
pay petty and annoying taxes. There was not one 
Italy till quite lately. 

We in America also began with thirteen different 
colonies. The people of Massachusetts were jealous 
of New York and Virginia. The people of Rhode 
Island and Delaware were afraid that the greater 
colonies w r ould do them wrong. It was a great 
victory for friendliness among men when the colonies 
6s 


66 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


agreed to put away their jealousy and their mis¬ 
trust of one another, and to make a common 
country. 

Even when our fathers had joined together, and 
formed the United States of America, they were 
afraid of the people over the ocean. They were 
afraid of England, and believed that the English 
stood ready to fight against them. We were a 
Republic, and our people were very suspicious of 
the monarchies of Europe, like Spain and Austria. 
Most of our people at first were Protestants; they 
did not always remember what good patriots the 
Catholics of Maryland had been in the Revolution. 
A great many people in Europe, it must be con¬ 
fessed, were not friendly to America. Kings and 
princes and lords did not like the plan of our 
great Republic for the people. The Republic was 
an experiment, and many thought that it would 
never succeed. 

Friendliness has been growing all over the world 
during the past hundred years. Where are any 
enemies of America over the seas? If any people 
are suspicious of us we have made them so by the 
unfriendly conduct of certain Americans. Travel 
about through Europe, and try to find our enemies. 
Wherever we Americans may go we are pretty sure 
of being treated kindly. Where are the kings and 


OUR FRIENDS OVER THE SEAS 67 

princes who really purpose to do any harm to 
America? There are really few kings left in the 
world. In many countries the Americans are favor- 



Lafayette 


Lafayette, a French nobleman, was one of the most trusted 
friends of Washington. He was an ardent lover of the cause 
of freedom; he was as brave as he was generous. He gave 
his youth to help our forefathers, and was made a general in 
our army. Afterwards he returned to France and devoted 
his life to the service of his own country. He made two 
famous visits to the United States, and had a joyous welcome 
wherever he went. 

ites of the people. Nearly all nations like to have 
the Americans come and spend their money amongst 
them. 

It is true that Americans sometimes do what 





68 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


Frenchmen or Englishmen or Spaniards* do not 
like. So Eastern people or Southern people some¬ 
times do what Western or Northern people do not 
like. But we have learned not to hate and fight 
each other, although we now and then disagree. 
So the peoples over the seas and we in America 
have no reason to be enemies, although we some¬ 
times differ or misunderstand each other. 

Why is it that the people of the world have come 
to be so much more friendly toward one another 
than they used to be? One reason is that a great 
many of us have relatives over the ocean. The 
English people are our cousins, more or less removed. 
Others of us have had uncles or grand-parents over 
in Ireland, or in Germany, or in Russia or Sweden 
or Italy. We cannot call that a foreign country 
where our relatives live. Neither can we quite call 
that a foreign country where the relatives of our 
own friends and neighbors and schoolmates live. 
For we all know Americans who came of the German 
or the Irish or some other national stock. 

Another reason why we grow friendly to the 
peoples over the seas is that there is so much trade 
and travel between the other countries and ours. 
Every big steamer that crosses the ocean weaves a 
thread that binds us all closer together. Our Amer¬ 
ican wheat goes to feed the English workmen; 


OUR FRIENDS OVER THE SEAS 69 

our cotton goes to be made into cloth; fine goods 
come from the French and Belgian factories to be 
displayed in the stores of New York and Chicago. 



Edmund Burke 


This sturdy friend of America was born in Ireland. During 
the American Revolution he was a member of the British 
Parliament. He was fearless and eloquent in speaking what¬ 
ever he believed to be true, or for the good of the people. 

The great steamers carry thousands of letters,— 
letters about business, friendly letters, and love 
letters. Men who get letters from one another, who 
get money and supplies from the people over the 
water—men in America who read French or Ger- 






7 o 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


man or Italian books and newspapers, come to feel 
toward the men of Europe as the men in New 
England feel toward the men in Texas or Cali¬ 
fornia. 

The truth is, we are becoming acquainted with 
each other all over the world. We find that the 
men in Europe or Asia are very much like us. We 
all have the same human nature in us. We all like 
to be treated fairly and kindly. We all feel pleas¬ 
antly toward those who are just and generous to us. 
Friendly people, whether they are Americans or 
strangers, help us to be friendly too. Selfish people, 
whether they are relatives or foreigners, are dis¬ 
pleasing to us. Wherever a good man is, he is 
everyone’s friend. 

There are certain people over the seas who are 
specially the friends of America. Most of the plain 
working people in Europe are our good friends. 
Why is this? It is because they believe, as we do, 
in government for the people. They want free 
government in Prussia and Austria and Russia and 
everywhere. In England the plain working people 
already have probably as much power as we have 
here. That is, the government of England is be¬ 
coming a government for the whole people. The 
English people are therefore our particular friends. 
Let us never forget that thousands of them were 


OUR FRIENDS OVER THE SEAS 71 

willing for our sakes to suffer to the verge of star¬ 
vation in the Civil War . 1 



W. E. Gladstone 

This famous English prime-minister was a great lover of 
liberty, not for his own people alone, but also for oppressed 
peoples in other lands. He was a special friend of America. 

1 This was in the time of the “Cotton Famine.” Our war pre¬ 
vented the Lancashire mills from getting their usual supply of cotton 
from the South. There were Englishmen who wanted their govern¬ 
ment to interfere and put a stop to the war so as to have plenty of 
cotton again. But the Lancashire weavers said No. They loved 
America, and wished to put an end to slavery, and few men at that 
time saw how to get rid of it except by force. Americans, North 
and South, are now one in their gladness that there are no longer 
slaves in their land. We can all join in praising the Lancashire workmen. 







72 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


There have always been many great friends of 
America among the leaders and statesmen and 
teachers and the best-educated men in Europe. The 
men and women who love liberty and hold high hopes 
of a better time to come are sure to believe in 
America. 

There were thousands of such true men in Eng¬ 
land who helped us mightily in the days of Wash¬ 
ington and Franklin. The great William Pitt and the 
eloquent Burke held that our cause was the cause 
of England. They spoke and voted for us in the 
British Parliament as bravely as Samuel Adams and 
Patrick Henry spoke and voted here. Lafayette, the 
rich French nobleman, a Catholic, was the friend of 
America; and the German, Baron Steuben. 

We have great numbers of such good friends in 
Europe to-day. Not all the rich and powerful are 
selfish and proud. Some of them are trying to gain 
for their own people the same great end that we 
aim to secure in America for every one of our chil¬ 
dren; namely, a fair chance to work out a happy, 
useful, human life. Their cause is our cause. Let 
us never forget our friends over the seas. Let us 
never insult the flags that float over their heads. 
While we salute our own flag, let us sometimes 
salute the flags of other nations. For we are all 
friends at heart, children of the Heavenly Father. 


CHAPTER X 
The Laws of the Land 

Let us suppose something very strange. We will 
suppose that some day the master of the school 
should give notice that all the rules were suspended. 
Every one might do as he pleased for the whole 
morning; the scholars might get their lessons or 
not; they might recite or not; they might whisper 
and talk aloud; they might play games; they might 
make mischief if they chose; they might, if they 
liked, injure the books and desks; the stronger or 
careless boys might hurt the little ones. What do 
you think would happen in that school? 

It is possible that some of the boys would like 
such a school for a day or two. But they would 
soon become tired of it. No one could possibly 
learn anything; no one could even read story-books 
in peace; the noise would be dreadful; the teacher 
would not be of the slightest use; the schoolhouse 
would not be half so good a place to play in as the 
playground is. In fact, to suspend all the rules 
would be like stopping the school. The children 
would go home and say to their parents, “We do 

73 


74 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


not want to go to that school any longer; we cannot 
learn anything there.” 

Or, perhaps the older and brighter boys by the 
end of the third day would come to the master and 
say, “We wish that you would make a few rules for 
us.” 

“What rules shall I make?” the master might 
say. “Will you vote to make some rules for your¬ 
selves?” 

“Yes,” the boys would answer, “very willingly. 
We will vote to have decent order in the schoolroom. 
We will vote to stop the talking and the play. We 
will vote to give every fellow a fair chance to study 
in quiet. We will vote to have recitations again 
and not to let any one interrupt the lessons with 
noise. We will vote not only that the teacher ought 
to be here promptly on time when school begins, 
but that every one of us ought also to be in his seat. 
We will vote that, as long as we go to school, no one 
can be absent without some good reason.” 

“Very well,” the master might reply, “I like your 
rules. They are just as good as my rules are. Let 
us call them our rules, and let us first vote for them, 
and then let us all try to keep them.” 

We do not even like to guess what would happen 
if the laws of the land were suspended for a single 
week. To be sure, most people would go on as 


THE LAWS OF THE LAND 


75 



before, and behave themselves perfectly well. But 
a very few mischievous people might make a deal 
of costly trouble. What if half-crazy and excited 
men should go through the streets firing revolvers 


© Klinedinst 

Hall of Representatives in the Capitol at Washington 

In this hall and in that of the Senate the representatives of the 
people make the laws of the land. 

into the crowd? Or, what if mischief-makers should 
set fire to buildings? No people that we have ever 
heard of have tried to live without any laws. 

Where do our American laws come from? No 
great master or king makes them and forces us to 











THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


76 

keep them. No little committee of wise men tells 
us common people that we must do what they bid 
us. The laws are our laws. Some of them have 
come down from very ancient times. Our fore¬ 
fathers used them for hundreds of years. They 
seem so good and sacred that men have often rev¬ 
erently said that “God taught them to men.” The 
law not to murder, the law not to steal, the laws to 
keep the family life honorable, the laws not to in¬ 
jure our neighbors — these are the laws of intelli¬ 
gent and civilized men all over the world. We say 
that those who do not keep these grand and ancient 
laws are more foolish than the savages. 

Some of our laws have grown. There were new 
needs, and new laws had to be made to meet these 
needs. Thus, there were no laws about keeping the 
streets clean till men found out that filthy streets 
breed disease. There could have been no laws 
about clearing the sidewalks of dust or rubbish in 
the days, not so long ago, when men had no side¬ 
walks in their cities. There were no laws about 
railroads till the age of steam came in. 

Whether the laws are old or new, or however they 
came, they are our laws. They belong to all the 
people; they are for the sake of all of us, for the 
poor even more, if possible, than for the rich. We 
vote for the laws; or we vote for the men who make 


THE LAWS OF THE LAND 


77 



them; or we vote for the government that carries 
out and enforces the laws. 

Are there not some bad or foolish laws? Or, laws 
that inflict cruel punishments, or, that take away 


A Modern Dairy 

Note the cleanliness of the barn, the cows, and the men. In many 
states the laws require such care to prevent disease. 

the liberty of some of us, or laws that favor the rich 
more than the poor? If so, we must join hands 
and get rid of foolish laws. We wish all our people 
to enjoy the utmost freedom, as long as they do 
no violence to others. We need not put up long 
with a bad law; we can agree to vote it away. 




THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


78 

If any law happens not to seem to all of us quite 
fair, we can petition, like the scholars in a school, 
to have that law altered and made right. We can 
go to work and persuade others to join us in getting 
that law changed. But as long as the majority of 
the people vote to retain the law, no one has any 
selfish right to disobey it and make disorder and 
trouble for all the rest. 

Along the low banks of the Mississippi River they 
build great embankments, or levees, to keep the 
waters from overflowing the land and sweeping 
away the farmer’s crops and his buildings. Our 
laws are like the vast levees that curb the water of 
the river. Our laws defend our homes, our lives, 
our property. Whoever breaks a law is like the man 
who cuts the levee and lets the water rush through. 
The harm and the cost come upon all of us. On the 
other hand, the majority of the people ought never 
hastily to impose a law which seems oppressive to 
the others, or even to a few. Is it not more friendly 
to wait a while and persuade the others at least 
to try the new law? 

You see, good rules do not take away our liberty. 
When the school suspends all its rules for a single 
day freedom is taken away. No one any longer 
can possibly read or study; every one is forced to 
be disturbed. The rules restore liberty. It is not 


THE LAWS OF THE LAND 


79 



true liberty to be allowed to spoil the school. True 
liberty is to be free to enjoy the privileges of the 
school. It is liberty to be able to read in quiet, to 


Citizens in Training to Love Their Country and to 
Respect Its Laws 

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it 
stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

write, to study, to recite lessons, that is, to use and 
enjoy our school. 

So in the city, it is liberty to be able to go about 
one’s business and not to be disturbed by any one. 
It is liberty to be able to walk the streets without 
fear by night as well as by day. It is liberty to be 
able to display goods in the shop windows without 



8 o 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


danger of being robbed. It is liberty to be able to 
travel across the Continent to the Pacific Ocean, 
and to find protection wherever one goes. It is 
liberty to be allowed to say whatever we believe to 
be true. Our laws are meant to give us Americans 
this great liberty. The only demand made of us 
is that we obey the laws as we wish others to obey 
them. 

Some laws are for our convenience. Thus, if we 
are in an automobile or riding on a bicycle, there is 
a rule or law to turn to the right in meeting another 
vehicle. Suppose we had no law on our roads and 
one could go to the right or left as he liked. Do you 
not see at once how teams and riders would run into 
each other? Sometimes careless people think that 
they can break the rule “just once,” and turn the 
wrong way. Or they venture to ride on crowded 
streets faster than the law allows. Bad accidents 
happen every day to innocent persons, when selfish 
or reckless men break the laws which are for the 
convenience and safety of all of us. 

The laws are like the tracks on which the car- 
wheels run. As long as the car keeps upon its track 
it will run swiftly and safely. 


CHAPTER XI 

The Policemen and What They are For 

A great city has thousands of policemen. They 
are like an army in Boston or New York or Chicago. 
Even the little cities and the towns have a force of 
policemen, or at least a few constables. All these 
policemen, with their officers and captains, must be 
paid for by the people. What are they for? What 
good do they do, that we should keep them in our 
pay? 

Some one may answer: “The police are appointed 
to catch or arrest thieves and others who break the 
laws, and to bring them to court and, later, take 
them to jail. They run after boys who steal apples 
or pears, or who throw stones on the streets.” But, 
if you should follow a policeman a whole day, it 
would often happen that he would not arrest or 
chase any one. He walks back and forth over his 
beat and no one offers to do any mischief. 

“Yes,” you will say, “but every one knows that 
the policeman is there, and bad men are afraid and 
keep out of his way.” Thieves also know that the 
country is covered with policemen; so that if they 

81 


82 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


did a crime in Philadelphia or Brooklyn, and escaped 
to California, a telegraph message could go in a few 
moments to San Francisco to notify the police there 
to be on the watch and arrest them. Thus, all the 
policemen in the country help one another to defend 
the laws. 

Yes, and if some very great wrong has been done, 
the police in Canada and over the ocean, in London 
or Paris, will also help our police at home to catch 
a dangerous man and keep him from doing harm 
to his fellows; for all the people in the world, who 
stand by the laws of justice, are friends and helpers 
to one another. 

We must not think that the policemen are all the 
time looking for thieves and lawless people. Most 
people are too sensible to break the laws and get 
themselves into trouble. The policeman is on the 
watch wherever he goes, and especially in the night, 
for any sign of fire. If he sees anywhere a suspicious 
blaze or smoke, he finds out what it is. Sometimes 
he is able to put a fire out before it does any harm; 
sometimes he has to ring the alarm for the engines 
to come. 

There are careless clerks who forget to lock up 
their stores at night. The policeman must try the 
doors and see that all is right. The policeman, you 
see, is really a watchman. If every one did right, 



THE POLICEMEN AND WHAT THEY ARE FOR 83 

and there were no longer any cruel or wilful men in 
the land, we should not need nearly so many police¬ 
men, but we should still require public watchmen 
in every great town. 

There are many people who are not really wicked, 


Platoon of Policemen in a Patriotic Parade 

but who are frightfully careless. They forget to 
remove the ice from their sidewalks; they throw 
rubbish into the gutter; they keep nuisances, as, 
for instance, ugly dogs, on their premises, without 
thinking of their neighbors’ comfort or safety; 
they drive their cars, or ride their bicycles, as if 



8 4 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


the whole street belonged to them. The policeman 
must look after these careless people; he must re¬ 
mind them of the rules of the city; he must report 
them if they continue to forget; sometimes it is 
necessary to arrest them, for a very careless man 
may do as much harm as if he meant to do it. 

There is another part of the work of the police 
that many of us forget. Perhaps it is the pleasantest 
part of their work. They must help people who are 
in need or distress. If a little child loses its way, if 
any one meets with an accident or is taken sick, if 
a team breaks down, if a poor tramp is found by 
the roadside almost frozen to death, the policeman 
must lend a hand. Perhaps he will call for a physi¬ 
cian, or he will telephone for help to the station 
house, or he will get the injured man into the hospital. 

The good policeman is always ready also to answer 
the questions of citizens or strangers who need to be 
shown their way. If you did not know a single soul 
in a great city, the first policeman whom you met 
ought to befriend you and advise you where to go and 
what to do. The poorest stranger should find a 
friend in the policeman. So should all the children 
of the city. 

You will often see a policeman stationed at the 
crossing of a crowded street to keep the teams and 
cars in order, and to see that no woman or little 



THE POLICEMEN AND WHAT THEY ARE FOR 85 

child is run over. The use of motor cars calls for 
more policemen every year. It takes a deal of skill 
and presence of mind and courage to be a good 
“traffic manager.” A policeman also must often 
stand at the doors of a great hall or theatre, and 


Mounted Traffic Policeman at Work 

If now and then he arrests a driver, it is because the latter 
disregards the rights of others. 

prevent the crowd from hurting one another. Thus 
the police help to preserve order and to keep the 
people safe from the new kinds of danger that arise 
in our big cities. 

We see now what kind of men we need for our 
police. In the first place, we need strong, healthy 
men, who can bear exposure to rain and snow, to 







86 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


summer heat and winter cold. We need brave men 
who are not afraid to stand alone in the night, who 
would die rather than desert their post; for the 
policemen are like sentinels on duty. A policeman 
must be thoroughly honest. He must be a man 
whom we all can trust. If he finds a purse full of 
money he must report it and try to discover the 
owner. He must be a man whom we could leave 
in charge of the keys to our houses, if we should 
go out of town. He must be perfectly truthful. 
How distressing it would be if the policeman was a 
liar or dishonest, that is, a traitor! Or, if he ever 
abused and insulted anyone. 

The policeman must also be a kind and friendly 
man. We have seen that one of his duties is to 
look after little children, the infirm, the aged, those 
who need help, strangers too, who may not know 
our language. This calls for a gentle man, as well 
as a strong and brave man. But more than this, 
the policeman must be kind toward those who 
break the laws and have to be arrested. The law¬ 
breakers are human beings with feelings just like 
ours. Perhaps no one has ever told them what the 
laws are and why we must obey them for the sake 
of all of us. If they have done wrong and have got 
into trouble, they are very much to be pitied. We 
wish them to be cured of doing wrong; we cannot 


THE POLICEMEN AND WHAT THEY ARE FOR 87 

bear to see any one ugly, harsh, abusive, and cruel 
to them. We wish the policeman to help them if 
he can. We do not wish him to arrest any one un¬ 
less it is quite necessary and clearly his duty. We 
want him to keep people out of jail rather than to 
send them there. 

Sometimes one man, or a few men, hold a meet¬ 
ing to advance certain novel ideas which other people 
dislike so much to hear that they wish to forbid the 
meeting. But the police must protect the humblest 
man in town while he speaks. For it is better to 
let men speak freely than it is to silence them as 
tyrants do. 

Thus the policeman must be a friend to us all; 
he must be the friend and helper of those who obey 
the laws; and he must be a friend to those who 
do wrong, just as a doctor is a friend to the sick 
man, whom he has to confine to his bed. 


CHAPTER XII 
The Courts and Judges 

One of the largest and most costly buildings in 
many a town is the court-house. Perhaps as the 
children pass by its doors they feel a sort of dread. 
Here people charged with crime are taken to be 
tried. Policemen or sheriffs are about its rooms, 
waiting upon the service of the laws. Judges and 
other officers are within; lawyers and witnesses 
are coming and going. 

Not very far away from the court-house is the 
county jail or perhaps the State prison. The judge 
sentences offenders against the laws to be shut up 
in its strong walls, sometimes for many years; in 
some cases for life. All this is very serious business. 

Does any one think that the courts are only 
intended to try bad people and to deal out punish¬ 
ment to them? Does some one perhaps think that 
the judges and sheriffs are only for the sake of pro¬ 
tecting good and law-abiding citizens, and that 
they are the enemies of disobedient people? This 
would be a great mistake. The fact is, the people 
who do wrong have rights. They have the right 
88 


THE COURTS AND JUDGES 


89 


to expect justice; that is, perfectly fair treatment. 
Though they have done harm, they are still men. 



Court House, Detroit, Mich. 

Do you know of any buildings like this in the picture, that are owned 
by the people of the United States? Does the Post Office where you 
live belong to the government? 

They must be treated like men. How should we 
like to be treated if we had broken the laws? 

We have now and then read in the papers, that 















THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


90 

some wretched man, perhaps out on the frontier, 
or in some backward part of the country, has been 
“lynched.” What does that mean? It means that 
a band of men, being very angry on account of a 
crime that has been committed—possibly the 
stealing of horses—have pounced on their victim, 
and without waiting for the officers of the law or for 
witnesses, have proceeded to hang the man at once. 
They very likely do this act, like cowards, at night. 
It often happens that their victim was not the guilty 
person but an innocent man. If he was surely 
guilty, this was no excuse for cruelty and abuse. 
Ought not the man to have had a fair trial? 

In old times it often happened that men were 
seized and thrown into a dungeon, without even 
being told what they had done to deserve imprison¬ 
ment. Many a time innocent men have died in 
prison. In some countries to-day, perhaps in all 
countries in times of fear and excitement, people 
are still liable to imprisonment without knowing 
who accuses them of doing wrong. Now the courts 
are intended to save innocent and guilty men alike 
from cruel and barbarous treatment. Men must 
not be lynched; they must know what charge is 
made against them; they must be brought out of jail 
and into the public court-room; if there is no reason 
to detain them they must be promptly set free. It 


THE COURTS AND JUDGES 91 

is a terrible cruelty to suspect an innocent person. 
We in America must never believe that a man has 
done wrong until we are made sure of it. The courts 
must give every man justice, even if he is guilty. 

The judge is not the enemy of the offender, but 
he is, or certainly ought to "be, his friend. His 



Trying an Offender in Court 


duty is to see that the trial is perfectly fair. The 
prisoner must not be convicted of guilt without 
clear proof from the mouth of truthful witnesses. 
All that can be said in his behalf must be heard 
and weighed. If he is poor and cannot hire a law¬ 
yer to speak for him, the judge must see to it that a 














92 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


lawyer is appointed and paid for at public cost. 
He ought also to be a good lawyer. If the man is 
proved guilty, the judge must still award his sen¬ 
tence with a view to the good of the prisoner. He 
must continue to be his friend and not his enemy. 
Of all men those who do wrong are the most pitiable, 
and, like the sick, most need friends. They ought 
never to be treated with violence. 

In a trial at court there are twelve men who make 
up the jury. They hear both sides and have to 
decide whether the prisoner is guilty or not. These 
jurymen ought to be the prisoner’s friends and not 
his enemies. They promise solemnly to try to be: 
perfectly fair. They listen to all the evidence so 
as to be sure not to do an injustice. They talk the 
whole case over by themselves, and unless they all 
agree that there is ample proof of the man’s guilt 
he cannot be detained. 

But how about the prison and the jailers? The 
prison may be likened to a hospital, and the jailers 
may be likened to the doctors and nurses. We say, 
if a patient is very ill, that it is not good for him to 
go out. What if he has an infectious disease like 
smallpox? He ought not to want to go out and 
carry the disease to others. What if he has leprosy? 
It is very hard, but he ought to be willing to be 
shut away by himself. 


93 



THE COURTS AND JUDGES 

So we say about crime. Crime hurts us all. As 
long as a man carries about with him criminal habits, 
he ought not to wish to be let out of the hospital — 
that is, the prison. It is no kindness to let a man 


Work Shop in a Penitentiary 

In some prisons useful trades are taught so that the men may become 
helpful members of society when they go out. 

go free to burn houses or kill or steal. The kindness 
is in keeping him from doing any harm; kindness is 
in trying to cure him. 

It must be confessed that we have not thought 
enough about curing our prisoners of their bad 
habits. There are as yet only a few prisons in our 
country that are really hospitals for the wrong-doers. 









94 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


The great prison at Elmira, in the State of New 
York was intended to do something of this kind. 
The business of those in charge of this institution is 
to befriend the men who are sent there. The men 
are taught useful trades, and when they go out into 
the world again, they often become good and law- 
abiding citizens. By and by we shall have no other 
kind of prisons or jails except such as do hospital 
work to befriend and cure their inmates. We shall 
train kindly men and women for the service of the 
hospital-prisons. We shall have no criminals any 
longer, unless a few who are so insane as to need 
special treatment. 

The courts and the judges are not only meant 
to do justice in cases of wrong and crime. A large 
part of their work has nothing to do with crime or 
with dangerous people. Indeed, this class is not 
large in America; for most of us mean to do right. 
But there are always hard questions that come up 
between neighbors, and between business men, and 
even between friends. There are questions about 
property and land and bargains, and the keeping 
of promises. Sometimes men misunderstand each 
other. Often they see only their own side of a 
question, and do not see their neighbor’s side. 
Often each man is confident that he is right and the 
other is wrong. Sometimes both men are wrong, 



THE COURTS AND JUDGES 95 

or they are each partly wrong and partly right. 
Their questions are like those which arise between 
boys at their games. The boys need an umpire to 


School Self-Government 

A school court in which pupils are disciplined by their comrades. 

decide for them. The umpire must know all the 
nice points of the game and he must be fair-minded 
and keep a level head. The courts and judges do 
the same kind of work. Men therefore have no 
excuse for getting angry and abusing one another 
over their differences. Let them go to the courts 
and ask impartial men to say what is right. 

It is costly business to quarrel or dispute and to 






THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


96 

pay lawyers’ bills. It is a great deal better to be 
fair-minded, and to try to see how the case looks 
to the other side and not to have to go to the court 
at all. It is sometimes better to get out of a quar¬ 
relsome man’s way altogether, and not to do any 
more business with him. Yes, it may be better to 
let him have more than his share, rather than to 
stop and dispute. It is far more important to be sure 
to do justice to the other than to compel him to do 
justice to us. In the long run we get justice best 
by doing justice and doing it generously. It is 
costly also to the public, that is, to all of us, to 
keep so many courts open where men may go to 
have their cases tried. But it would be a great 
deal worse and far more costly if every man under¬ 
took to settle his own case, and to compel his neigh¬ 
bor by force to do him justice. Where men have 
courts, they learn to treat each other like gentle¬ 
men, even when they are obliged to differ. 

What kind of men do we need for judges, and for 
jurors too? We need men who can see both sides 
and all sides of a question. We need kind and 
friendly persons, who are never hard upon a man 
because he is down. We want faithful men, who 
will take great pains to find out all that is possible 
before they make a decision, who will give the same 
attention to the poor as to the rich. We need well- 


THE COURTS AND JUDGES 


97 


trained judges who know what the laws are. We 
want fearless judges, who will do justice, even when 
their decision is not popular; for sometimes a 
judge has to stand up all alone and decide against 
people’s prejudices and against his own wishes also. 
The judge must not have favorites. He must be 
as strict with his own neighbors as with any stranger, 
with his countrymen as with foreigners. He must be 
beyond the reach of a bribe; he must never make 
the gain of a dollar for himself by means of his 
decision. 

Do we need just, friendly, conscientious, and brave 
men also for lawyers? Of course we do. What are 
the lawyers for, unless to help the courts to do jus¬ 
tice? What a shame it would be if lawyers used the 
courts to help rascals escape, or to cheat honest 
men out of their property! It is dreadful when 
the courts aid the oppressors to wrong the 
people. Let us never forget that in America the 
courts are meant to stand for the defence of the 
people. When we come to think for ourselves and 
to vote, let us take pains to make the courts 
better. 

You can see now the difference between a half- 
civilized and a truly civilized nation. In the first, 
people become hot and quarrelsome even over 
little disputes, and they try to make others do 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


98 

justice (as they happen to see it) by violence. This 
leads on to more injustice and violence, and often to 
fighting, and murder. But a civilized people learn 
to treat each other kindly like neighbors. Then 
there is no need of violence, much less of fighting. 


CHAPTER XIII 
Our Public Servants 

Let us suppose that we should ask all the men and 
women whom we know, “What is your business?” 
We should not go far before we found some one 
who would answer, “I work for the city,” or, “I 
work for the town.” Of course the teachers work for 
the towns or the cities, and they are paid out of the 
town or city money. The policemen and sheriffs and 
the judges also work for the people, that is, for all 
of us, and the people must pay them their salaries. 

But there are a great many others who work for 
the people. Especially in a great city, you will 
be surprised at the number of men who have some¬ 
thing to do with the city work. There must be a 
force of firemen, night and day, ready to tend the 
fire-engines, the motors, and the hose carriages. 
There must be men at work keeping the streets 
in order. There must be pavers and bricklayers 
and workers in asphalt. Another set of men must 
be at work in the parks and public gardens, or 
these beautiful places for the people would soon 
look shabby and go to waste. Another force of men 

99 


IOO 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 



must work to keep the city clean, to sweep the 
streets, and to remove ashes and refuse and gar¬ 
bage. Others must build and repair the great sewers. 

What does the town or city need in great quanti¬ 
ties? It needs a plentiful supply of pure water. 


Fire Engine 

There must be enough to sprinkle the streets, and 
keep the grass fresh, and to fill all the factory boilers. 
There must be enough to play in the fountains. 
A force of men is therefore needed all the time to 
work in the water department; to lay mains and 
pipes and keep them in repair; to build and main¬ 
tain reservoirs, far back among the hills. 







OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS 


IOI 



The city must have hospitals also for its sick, and 
homes for the aged and poor and for orphan chil¬ 
dren. It must have doctors and nurses; it must 
have superintendents and engineers and clerks. 
It wants skilful men and women to fill all kinds 


City Laborers Repairing a Street 

of offices. You can probably think of some of its 
servants whom we have not yet mentioned at all. 

What are all these town and city offices for? 
There are some people who think that the city 
work is for the men and women who draw their 
pay for doing it. What a fine thing, they say, it 
would be to get city work, and to have short and 
easy hours, and to be sure of good pay every week. 
They really think that the work is all made for the 









102 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


sake of the office-holders. But this surely is not a 
decent idea about the work of the city. What, 
then, is our idea about this work? A good Amer¬ 
ican holds that the city work is for the sake of 
the people. The men on the streets are not there 
to draw pay, but to do their very best to make 
good streets. If a man were working for his father 
or brother, would he not think it mean business to 
waste material and do a slovenly job? Would he 
not think it mean if his brother were paying him 
wages, to dawdle away his time? Is it not mean like¬ 
wise to waste the people’s money and material? 

The same rule holds with the city doctors and 
architects and engineers. They do not serve the 
city in order to draw their salaries, but to help the 
city, that is, all of us, to fight off disease, to plan 
the best possible buildings, to save the people of 
their city from needless waste and expense. Suppose 
the boys choose a captain of their base-ball nine. 
Why is he made captain? Is it to give the boy an 
honor that he can brag about? Is it for the boy’s 
sake, or is it wholly for the sake of the club? 

So we say of every one of the city officers. We 
do not choose them for their sake, but we choose 
them and pay them salaries for the sake of the 
people. If any office is not needed to serve the 
people, it would be disgraceful for a man to draw 



OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS 103 

the pay for it. Who is strong, able, and honest, 
so as to give us the very best and most faithful 
service? He is the man whom we want for a fireman, 
or a driver, or a mason, or a laborer. Who is in 
the city work to get as much as he can out of the 


In an Emergency Hospital 

city and to do as little as possible for his pay? 
He is a kind of cheat, and even a traitor. 

We have called the men and women who do town 
or city work the public servants. Is servant a good 
name to use for them? Is not a servant one who 
does rather mean work? Would a lady or gentleman 
like to be called a “servant”? We take this word 
servant , because it is the best word to tell the truth. 









104 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


All who do the city work serve the city. To serve 
is what they are for. Is not this what any good and 
honest citizen would like to do? Would you not 
wish, if you could, to do something handsome for 
the city, that is, for your own people? Would 
you not like to give them honest, effective work, 
so good that it would never need to be done again? 
Would you not be ashamed if your work was not 
worth as much as it cost? Would you rather not 
be paid too little, and so leave the city better for 
your work, than be paid too much and so to de¬ 
fraud the people? What are we all here in the 
world for except to help and serve and oblige one 
another? 

The truth is, all the men whom the world honors 
most have loved to be thought of as public servants. 
The great Hebrew teachers, Moses and Isaiah, the 
noble Christian teachers, Jesus and Paul, Catholics 
like Joan of Arc and Thomas More, and Protestants 
such as William Penn and Gladstone, have been 
noble examples to show that the best kind of man 
is not here in this world to get place and honor 
and pay, “to be ministered unto,” but to be a min¬ 
ister; that is, a servant of the people, so as to help 
make the world happier, richer, and better. This 
is coming to be the great idea in every civilized 
nation. 


CHAPTER XIV 
The Mayor, or the Head Servant 

Over in London there is a famous palace, called 
the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor lives. 
Within the bounds of the city he is held to be next 
in rank to the king or queen. If you should see 
him in all the splendor of his dress on some grand 
holiday, perhaps you would not guess what the real 
business of the mayor is. You would imagine that 
he had no business or work, but that his office was to 
preside over great festivities, and to sit at the head of 
a rich banqueting hall. But the business of a real 
mayor in these days is not to assist at great dinners. 

The mayor is in fact the head servant of the peo¬ 
ple of his city, of the poor as truly as of the rich. 
It is his duty to oversee the vast work that goes 
on for'the health, the safety, the welfare, and the 
happiness of all the people. A Lord Mayor of 
London may be a figurehead, but we do not intend 
here in America to let our mayors forget what 
great and hard work we expect of them. 

Whenever hundreds or thousands of men are at 


io 6 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

work, there must be someone to direct the work for 
them, or it will be wasted. . Some one must think 
and plan and show the men what to do. We have 
seen that a city has many men and women in its 
employ, and various branches or departments of 
work—the police, the water, protection against 
fire, the public health, the schools, and so on. Some 
one must oversee the working of all these branches 
of the public service. The men of the street de¬ 
partment must have money enough to spend, but 
not so much as to keep the other departments short 
of supplies and workmen. 

The mayor’s business is to watch over the interests 
of all the departments, so that the firemen and the 
sewer men have their fair share of the supplies, as 
well as the men in care of the streets and of the 
parks. It may be that the people at the east end 
of the town want a great deal of money to give their 
part of the city a new park. The mayor will wish 
to do all that he can for the park, but he wishes 
also to be sure that the boys and girls at the south 
end shall have playgrounds or a bathing-house. 

It may be that the merchants ask the city to help 
their business by cutting a new thoroughfare through 
the heart of the town, while at the same time the 
attention of the mayor is called to the untidy houses 
where multitudes of poor people are crowded. The 



THE MAYOR, OR THE HEAD SERVANT 107 

mayor is as much the servant of the poorest citizen 
as of the richest. He must do his best for all. 

Men greedy to get money sometimes wish to 
carry on a business that hurts the people, as the 
liquor trade used to do. The mayor must watch 
out and bring any such business to public attention. 


An Efficient Mayor at his Desk 

He must hear both sides of important questions 
regarding the welfare of the city, and he must obey 
and enforce the laws, even if selfish men speak against 
him and threaten to turn him out of office. The 
mayor has not power enough to alter the laws; 
he must obey them like any other man. 

Men will come to the mayor seeking to get work 
from the city and to have places and salaries. The 





io 8 the young citizen 

mayor’s friends will wish him to favor them, or to 
help their sons and daughters with his influence. 
Men who have voted for the mayor will think that 
he owes them something, and that he may get them 
a job from the city in payment of their help in 
electing him mayor. He must not be the mayor 
for his friends or for his own party, but for the whole 
city and all the people. He cannot honestly appoint 
any person to an office, unless he really thinks that 
person is fitted to do the best kind of service for the 
city. Would the captain of the base-ball nine ap¬ 
point his best friend to be catcher unless his friend 
was also the most skilful boy on the nine for that 
place? 

Who is the firmest, bravest man of whom we can 
think? We often imagine it is a soldier or sailor — 
Gen. Wood, for example, or Gen. Pershing. But 
the mayor of a city needs not less, but even more, 
firmness of nerve, courage, and will than any gen¬ 
eral or commodore. Mayors have sometimes had 
to stand at the head of the police and to face a 
crazy mob, to quiet angry or suffering men, and to 
save bloodshed. Mayors have often to do harder 
things: they must say No to their own friends; 
they must sometimes decide against their own 
party for the sake of the public good; they must 
forbid all bad and wasteful use of the people’s 


THE MAYOR, OR THE HEAD SERVANT 109 

money; they must turn out unfaithful officers, 
and possibly make enemies in so doing; they must 
even speak out and refuse the people, if ever the 
people demand an illegal or wrong thing; they must 
run the risk of being unpopular for the sake of the 
public good; they must always be ready and willing 
to give up office and go back to the ranks, and take 
the place of private citizens, if the people have no 
further use for them. 

Only a very brave man therefore can be a faithful 
and honest mayor. But when once the people have 
found such a man there is no one whom they respect 
and love more. Show them that their mayor is not 
in office for the honor or the pay, for his friends or for 
his party, but to serve the people; show them that 
he is not afraid of anybody, that he is fair and 
impartial, that he treats rich and poor alike on the 
ground of their common manhood, that he is as 
kind and friendly as he is upright and firm — and 
the people cannot do too much for this kind of mayor. 

Have there ever been mayors like this — true, 
sincere, fearless, public-spirited? Yes, the city of 
Boston had such a mayor once under the honored 
name of Josiah Quincy; New York had its Mayor 
Hewitt; Brooklyn had its Mayor Low; Toledo 
had “Golden Rule” Jones; Buffalo had its Mayor 
Cleveland, who, because he did good service as 


no 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


mayor, was afterward intrusted with the presidency 
of the nation. There have been many mayors in 
many cities in the Old World and in America whom 
the people have had a right to trust. They have been 
men who held that their sole business was to serve 
the people. Is it not pitiable that schoolboys should 
ever grow up to betray the people for the sake of 
their own ambition or to enrich themselves? Is 
it not a splendid chance that our American boys 
have, to become men whom after-generations will 
honor and thank for their honesty and public 
service in helping to build and beautify noble cities? 

Note. — Some cities employ a City Manager, who performs much of 
the Mayor’s work, and needs to be the same kind of able man. 


CHAPTER XV 

The City Fathers, or Keeping House for the People 

A city or town is like a great house, under the 
roof of which thousands of people are living. They 
must have all kinds of supplies; they must have rules 
or laws, so as not to interfere with each other or 
do injustice. There will often be puzzling ques¬ 
tions to decide, just as when a father and mother 
have to decide about painting their house, or build¬ 
ing an ell, or sending their boy to college. We say, 
when the parents have a home of their own and buy 
their provisions, and take care of their house, and 
settle all kinds of questions about the family, that 
they are housekeepers. So we might say that the 
people in their great multitude of homes and stores 
and shops, all bound together by common streets, 
with their various companies of public servants, 
are “house-keepers” together for the city. 

As long as people live in a little town, or in the 
country, the public housekeeping is simple, and does 
not take much time. Once or twice a year all the 
people, the men and the women, can come together 
and hear what their selectmen and school com- 


iii 


112 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


mittee advise, and talk over their town business, 
and choose officers, and decide what is for the good 
of the town. Perhaps all this business will not take 
more than three or four hours. But in a big town or 
a city there is too much business to be done in this 
easy fashion. If all the fathers of all the children 
in Boston or Chicago or New York tried to get to¬ 
gether in one place to talk over the city business, 
no building would be large enough to hold them. 
They would need also to meet every week, and per¬ 
haps every day in some weeks, to get through with 
the immense housekeeping of their city. 

What simple and fair plan for deciding all the 
multitude of questions about the welfare of the 
city can we think of? Suppose that, instead of 
bringing all the people together to hear reports 
about the needs of the city, and to decide what we 
will do, we select a few of the best and wisest men 
among our neighbors and fellow-citizens. Suppose 
we intrust to them the duty of acting for us. Sup¬ 
pose that, instead of making rules for ourselves in 
a big town meeting, we charge these few men to 
make our rules for us, and that we agree to abide 
by what they do. Suppose that we agree to raise 
the money which they say is needful to keep our 
city in order. This seems to be fair, and it is exactly 
what almost all large towns or cities have to do. 



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K n w 

Hint 
tf B It 
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fl it « 
k ’i <i H 


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« h ns i B8B l i 


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City Hall and Municipal Building, New York 











THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


114 

We sometimes call the men whom we choose to 
act for all of us “the City Fathers.’’ 

Sometimes these men are called Aldermen, from 
an old English word that means the Elders. But 
this does not mean that our aldermen have to be old 
men. They may be as young as thirty years, or 
younger. They are often called Councilmen, for 
they counsel together. 

A city may have two sets of counsellors — a 
larger body, as large in some cases as seventy or 
more, and a smaller number, perhaps only twelve 
men. In such cities both bodies must agree be¬ 
fore anything can be done. Indeed, often the 
public business suffers because the two bodies do 
not work well together. 

The City Councils do not carry on the city busi¬ 
ness themselves. They only hold meetings to talk 
about the business and to settle the questions that 
the people are too busy to settle themselves, and 
to choose the heads or chiefs of the great depart¬ 
ments. 

They make various rules for the welfare of the 
city; they decide what new streets shall be laid out, 
or what new buildings shall be erected for the city; 
they help to shape the business which the mayor and 
the other servants of the people must carry out. 
As parents decide to spend their money and, for 


THE CITY FATHERS 115 

instance, to build a new bath-room, and then employ 
a carpenter and a plumber to do the work for them, 
so the City Fathers, that is, the aldermen, set their 
various officers to work, as they think the needs of 
the city demand. 

How can any one man know enough to decide 



A Pure Food Exhibit 
From the budget exhibit of New York City. 


the thousand questions that arise about a growing 
city — questions about health, about the best ma¬ 
terials for pavements, about the right kind of school- 
houses? The men on the City Council help each 
other by dividing their work; they make up little 
committees among themselves; one committee will 
take the streets in hand, another will take charge 
of the public buildings, another may find out what 









n6 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

other cities are doing for public parks. Each com¬ 
mittee will make a report to the whole Council and 
advise what is best to be done. The Mayor also 
will bring his advice, for he ought to know better 
than anyone else what is best for the city. 

Is the Mayor, then, a sort of servant of the City 
Council? Yes. But every member of the Council 
is a servant too. He is a servant of the people, and 
he is also a servant to the other members of the 
Council. If they direct one of their number to in¬ 
spect the wharves of the city, or to go to another 
city for information about pavements, he must be 
ready to serve and must report the facts which the 
Board or Council needs to know. 

The Mayor, however, is a head servant over the 
Aldermen or the City Council. A Councilman 
might wish to spend money for his own ward, or his 
end of the city. He might be thinking of what his 
neighbors would like to get out of the city. But 
the Mayor is the servant of the whole city and all 
the people. Whatever the Councilmen wish to do the 
Mayor must think it over and decide whether it is 
best for the city. 

If a new rule, or a vote to spend the city money, 
does not seem right to the Mayor, he must tell the 
Council his objections, and they must talk about it 
again and make up their minds whether they wish to 


THE CITY FATHERS 


117 

pass it against the judgment of their Mayor. If 
they do. pass it again, as many as two-thirds of them 
must now agree to it. Thus, at least, in many 
cities, the Mayor is able to forbid or veto the will 
of the City Council. If the Mayor approves a new 
rule, or the proposed outlay of city money, a bare 
majority, that is, one more than half of the City 
Council — for example, thirteen men out of a 
Board of twenty-four—may decide the matter. 
But if the Mayor says No, it will need as many as 
sixteen men out of the twenty-four to carry out the 
same plan against the Mayor’s objection. 

What sort of men ought to be chosen to do the 
housekeeping of the city? Suppose that we should 
very carelessly choose young and inexperienced men 
— boys just out of college, or ignorant men, or those 
who had mismanaged their own business and wasted 
their own mfoney. Suppose that we should choose 
dishonest men, who were not ashamed to steal the 
public money for themselves and their friends. 

What should you think if parents appointed a 
committee of young boys to take charge of build¬ 
ing a new house? The people have often been so 
good-natured and careless as to trust their great 
housekeeping, with millions of dollars of expense, to 
men who thought it fun to spend the city money. 
Much money has therefore been wasted or stolen; 


n8 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

buildings have been ugly that might have been 
beautiful; work has had to be done over again; 
people have had to drink unwholesome water; the 
public health has suffered; children have died whose 
lives might have been saved; every one has had to 
pay more money for rent and taxes—all because 
foolish and selfish men have sat in the chairs of the 
City Fathers. Do you not think that the women, 
now that they can vote, will help the men to do our 
city housekeeping better? 

There is one grand remedy for public waste and 
foolishness. It is the choice of true and unselfish 
men and women to manage the affairs of the people. 
The children in our public schools will soon have 
this remedy in their hands. Some of them in a few 
years will be sitting in the council chambers of our 
cities all over the land. The boys, and the girls, too, 
will soon be voting for mayors and councilmen. The 
children are learning now which of their schoolmates 
are honest and true. The boys and girls who love 
their city or town are not going to help choose 
mean and selfish and dishonest councilmen. They 
are not going to be so foolish as to see their city 
money wasted and their city robbed. The boys who 
are reading these chapters, if ever they are elected 
to city offices, are not going to take the people’s 
money to “feather their own nests.” 


CHAPTER XVI 
The Country People 

A great many of the boys and girls of the United 
States never see a mayor. They do not live in a 
city, but in small villages or on farms in the country. 
The little villages and the scattered farms do not 
need many public officers or servants to take care of 
them. Each man has his own well or cistern. If a 
house catches fire the neighbors run to help put the 
fire out. The country people do not need parks and 
costly buildings. If some of their fe low-citizens are 
sick or poor, kind neighbors can generally look after 
their wants. 

In the country, therefore, a few men can attend 
to all the public business, such as the care of the 
roads and the schools and very poor and helpless 
neighbors. In some of the States, for example, in 
all of the New England States, selectmen are chosen 
every year to do the business of the' town. There 
are commonly three selectmen. They do not need 
to give all their time to the town, and they are only 
paid a small salary. Indeed, many men are willing 
to give their service to their town for much less than 


120 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


they could get for it from a bank or a railroad. This 
is because they love their own town and take pleasure 
in seeing it prosper. Besides the selectmen there 
are only a few officers, a clerk to keep the records 
and to give licenses, as, for example, when people are 
married; a treasurer to keep and pay out the town 



Old Town Hall, Marblehead, Mass. 


money, a school committee, perhaps a superintendent 
or overseer of the highways, one or two constables 
or policemen, and a few others, whom every boy 
or girl who lives in a town will soon hear of. 

Children will sometimes hear about counties, and 
the county business. Their school is in a certain 
county. Towns are only a few miles wide, perhaps 
five or six miles. But counties are twenty-five or 





THE COUNTRY PEOPLE 


121 


forty or more miles across. In each county there is 
a court-house, where the people at regular times may 
find one of their judges ready to try cases at law. 
Is it not a pity that every county thinks it necessary 
to build a dismal looking jail? Sometime we shall 
know how to do better than this. 



In some of the States of our Union there are no 
townships or selectmen, but the people manage all 
the business of their roads and schools by the help 
of county officers. A committee or commission, 
somewhat like the selectmen of a town, is chosen 
by the people to take charge of county affairs. 
Other officers also, like those who serve in a town, 
are chosen to keep the records, to keep the people’s 
















122 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


money, and to serve the convenience of the people. 
Most of these officers do not need to give all their 
time to the public business, and they receive very 
small salaries. 

Many of the people of the United States fre¬ 
quently move from one place to another. Possibly 
they move about too often. People born and reared 
in the country go to a city to live. City people 
sometimes go into the country. It is easy to move 
from one State to another, for one may find friends 
everywhere. If one is ready to work and is fair and 
kind, and especially if one knows how to do his 
work skilfully, he ought to be sure of a welcome 
wherever he goes. No one, however, should go to 
a strange place to live, without making careful 
enquiries beforehand. 

Throughout the United States the laws are 
much the same; the methods of government are 
nearly alike. If a country boy has learned about his 
town or county, he will soon understand how a city 
ought to be managed. He will find differences of 
method, or machinery, between one place and 
another. A town government is like a very simple 
machine with only a few parts. A city is like a great 
machine with many wheels and cogs and pieces. 
Whoever understands how to use the simple machine 
can soon learn how to handle the larger and more 



THE COUNTRY PEOPLE 123 

costly machine. In every case more depends upon 
the skill of the men in charge than upon the machine 
itself. 

Shall our great cities have good officers, wise and 
brave mayors, and honorable and public-spirited 


A Pleasant Country Home 

councilmen? The cities not only depend on their 
own children whom they are now educating in their 
schools to become good citizens, but they depend also 
upon the country boys and girls to furnish them with 
plenty of skilled hands to manage their business. 
The cities have no room for idle and shiftless people 
to move into them, but they always have room for 
the men and women of energy and character. 



124 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


History is full of the stories of men who were 
born in the country and have made their way to 
great places of honor in famous cities. Who has 
not heard of Dick Whittington, more than five 
hundred years ago, who, at only thirteen years of 
age, when his father died, went up to seek his for¬ 
tune in London, and was made the Lord Mayor 
before he was forty? 

Sturdy country boys have always carried vigor 
and courage into the city life. Ask who the most 
useful men are in the city of New York or Chicago, 
— merchants, physicians, architects, skilled work¬ 
men, the leaders of their fellows; the chance is 
that they were once country boys. You will often 
be shown the little farmhouse where some well- 
known man like Governor Andrew of Massachu¬ 
setts was born. Perhaps you will be shown the fine 
public library that a generous city man has erected 
as a gift to his native town. Yes! the cities always 
look to the country for their best men and women. 

The children who read this little book can ask 
their fathers or older friends to tell them who are 
their own town or county officers. They can find 
out what these various officers do. They can ask 
especially what officers are serving the people as 
good public servants ought, not for the sake of the 
pay, but in order to do the most effective and faith- 


THE COUNTRY PEOPLE 


125 


ful work for all of us. They can remember the names 
of such good public officers, and make up their minds, 
when they are old enough to have a voice in the 
people’s business, as to what kind of officers they 
will help to choose. 

If you children ever hear of dishonest and un¬ 
faithful public servants, who waste or misuse or 
even steal the money of the people, you can resolve 
to try to put a stop to such mischief. You can 
resolve that when you are grown up, and the people 
wish to choose you for their public servants, you will 
give your very best work for the people. You will 
do a little better if possible for the people’s business 
than you would do for yourselves. For when a man 
makes a mistake in his own business he perhaps 
hurts himself alone; but when he abuses the public 
business he hurts himself and all the people besides. 

When a boy is playing ball by himself, it is not 
very important if he sometimes fails to catch the ball; 
but when he is playing a match game, his failure 
may spoil the score for his side. So it is when a man 
turns aside from his own business and undertakes 
to serve the public. His mistakes and failures 
now become a public loss. We never can praise 
highly enough the man in office who does his work 
for the sake of all of us better, if possible, than he 
does his own work. 


CHAPTER XVII 
Voting, or Choosing our Leaders 

How do men become mayors and aldermen in the 
cities, or selectmen in the towns? In other words, 
how do we get leaders and managers for the people? 

In the rude old times the strongest and boldest 
men made themselves lords over the people. They 
got soldiers together, and they fought and killed 
those who resisted them. When the lord of a town 
died, his oldest son would take the rule and keep it, 
if he could, for his son after him. In the old countries 
of the world, in Italy or in Germany, you still are 
shown the castles, often on a high hill over the town, 
where the lords lived with their soldiers. Their 
business mostly was to fight against the lords of 
other cities. The men who made wars never cared 
much how the poor people got on, who often suffered 
terribly from hunger and oppression. Little did 
the lords trouble themselves in the old cruel days 
whether the children of their people ever learned 
to read and write. 

Perhaps a king or emperor who lived in Paris, or 
Vienna, or Moscow, thought that he owned all the 

126 


VOTING, OR CHOOSING OUR LEADERS 127 

cities of the realm. He could appoint his own 
friends or his sons to be the lords of the cities, and 
if the people did not like to be governed in this way 
they could not help themselves. 

Here in America we do not expect any man to 
seize the government for himself. However strong 


Independence Hall, Philadelphia 

This was the old Capitol of Pennsylvania. Here the Declaration 
of Independence was proclaimed, and the bell in the tower rang out the 
glad news. Here, after the war, the convention of famous men sat who 
drew up the Constitution of the United States. 

and brave and wise a man is, even if he is as good as 
Washington was, we hold that he must not take 
any office, till the people choose him of their own 
free will. We hold also that every officer of ours must 
be ready to lay down his office whenever his term 










128 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


of office runs out. Even the President of the United 
States must not hold his place for more than four 
years, and then the people will say whether they 
wish him to serve them longer. The mayors and 
other officers in some places have to be chosen anew 
every year. It seems to us Americans ridiculous 
that any man should have the power to hand his 
office down to his son, or to one of his relatives. The 
place is not his, we say, but ours to bestow. What 
if his son should happen to be foolish, or selfish? 

The business of choosing our officers, the mayors 
and aldermen and others, we call voting. An election 
day is appointed, perhaps once a year, when the 
people who are over twenty-one years old meet in 
their wardrooms or polling-booths or town halls; 
printed papers or ballots are provided for them with 
the names of their candidates, that is, the men or 
women who are thought to be fit for the various 
offices. Each voter picks out the paper or ballot 
that contains the names of the men he wants to 
elect; if he cannot find the names printed of those 
whom he wishes to vote for, he can write their names 
upon the paper himself. Then he puts his ballot 
into a box; and when all the ballots are in, there are 
persons to count them carefully and to find out 
which names have the larger number of votes. 
Whoever in the city has more votes than anv one 


VOTING, OR CHOOSING OUR LEADERS 129 

else for the office of mayor is declared the mayor- 
elect. So with the other officers. Does not this way 
seem perfectly fair? Would it not be very wrong 
if any one could be made mayor whom the larger 
part of the people did not want? 



An Election Scene 

Each voter has his name checked off from the book where it is registered, 
and then passes into the room or building, where he casts his vote. 


Many of our States use what is called the Aus¬ 
tralian ballot. It is called so because it was used 
in Australia before we took it up. The names of 
all the different candidates are printed upon the 
same paper, and the voter marks a cross (x) against 
the names that he chooses. It often takes a large 



































THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


130 

sheet, quite too large indeed, to contain all the 
names. The voter must mark his ballot within a 
little enclosed box or desk, so that no one can see 
what names he marks. This rule is made so that 
every one can be quite free to vote as he thinks right. 
For no one has any business in America to tell 
another how he must vote. 

Suppose that the teacher were to ask all the 
scholars in the room to hold up their hands and 
vote whether they would take an extra lesson in 
arithmetic. Perhaps some of the children would 
look around to see how the others were going to 
vote. Some might vote so as to get favor with the 
teacher. But suppose that all the scholars voted 
Yes or No on bits of paper, and no one knew what 
any one else wrote. Then the teacher would find out 
exactly what the children really wished about the 
extra lesson. The Australian ballot works in this 
way. The voter does not have to think whether 
his vote will please his neighbors or his employer. 

How can the people really know who is the best 
man in all the city to choose as their mayor? How 
can we tell what men and women will make the best 
school committee? Most of us know only a few 
of our neighbors, and out of all whom we know 
there may not be one man who is wise enough to 
manage the affairs of a great city. The fathers of 


VOTING, OR CHOOSING OUR LEADERS 


131 

the pupils may be good men, and yet they may not 
have had any experience in managing the business 
of a city. The truth is, most of the people do not 
know, without being told by others, whom to choose 
as their mayor. Most men have to make up their 
minds by what they hear and by reading the news¬ 
papers. This is one reason why every voter needs 
to know how to read. 

There are generally two or more parties into 
which nearly all the people are divided. There are 
also meetings before every election to choose can¬ 
didates to be voted for at the election. Thus we 
have an opportunity to vote before the voting 
day to discover who the men are who wish, or are 
willing, to be elected to the various offices. You 
have all heard the names of some of the parties: 
Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, etc. After the 
various parties have chosen their candidates, the 
people have the opportunity to inquire what kind 
of men they are. The newspapers tell us about 
them, where they were born, what schools they went 
to, what their business has been, whether they have 
done good service for the people or not. Sometimes 
different papers tell opposite things about the same 
man. But generally, if a man is true and faithful 
and a good friend to the people, you can tell whether 
he can be trusted to hold office. 


i 3 2 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


It would not be possible for the people to find out 
the character of all the officers who must serve them 
in a great city. We do not therefore try to vote for 
all. We probably now vote for too many officers. 
We do not vote for the captains of the police force, 
or for the men in the fire department, or for the 
clerks in the city hall. We charge the mayor, or the 
mayor and the council, with the duty of appointing 
for us the best men whom they can find to serve 
us in most of the city business. Neither do we every 
year turn out the captains of the city workmen, or 
the men who keep the money and the accounts 
at the city hall. If they are good men, the longer 
they serve us the better they become; they get 
practice and experience; whereas new and green 
hands would be just as wasteful in the city as they 
would be in a mill, or in a store or shop. 

We say therefore to the mayor: See to it that the 
business of the city shall be well done; if any men 
are not doing their part well, appoint better men in 
their place; but if you find good men in office, keep 
them as long as you can. Is not this best for the 
people, who are too busy to stop and find out for 
themselves about all the men in the pay and service 
of their city? 

You can suppose that all the pupils in a school 
once a month chose their own monitors and a presi- 



VOTING,- OR CHOOSING OUR LEADERS 133 

dent for every class. You can imagine that the boys 
should hold an election to choose their most skilful 
fellows to play as a school nine, or to make up a 
foot-ball team. How would you like it if a little 


A Man and his Wife Voting 

Note the ballot box, and in the background the booths where the 
voters mark their ballots 

group of some of the most selfish boys and girls in 
the school tried to get themselves elected to the 
class offices? What if some one, instead of waiting 
to see whether the class really wished him to be its 
president, bribed the younger ones with candy and 





THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


134 

soda-water and so got the election without deserving 
it? Would this be a real and true honor? Or, 
worse yet, suppose the captain of the school team 
got himself chosen by bullying the little boys, or by 
treating his fellows, while the best player, being a 
modest boy, was set aside. Would not the boys be 
very indignant when they found out that they had 
been imposed upon in this way? 

It happens often that the people of a city are 
imposed upon in the same way. The salaries and 
the wages paid to the men who do the city work 
are not too large for thorough and skilled men. 
But this pay looks very large to incompetent per¬ 
sons who are thinking of the salary instead of think¬ 
ing about the work to be done. There are always 
some such men who try to get the offices and the 
pay for themselves and for their friends. Some¬ 
times they do a very base thing: they give money 
and bribe the voters to elect them; or they contrive 
to elect careless men who will appoint them to cer¬ 
tain offices in return for their help in the election. 

Let us trust that these men do not know how 
much harm all this does to the public service, and 
how waste and expense thus come upon the poor; 
for if there is bad government, the poor are likely 
to suffer more than the rich. Indeed, it costs a 
deal of hard-earned money to live in a badly man- 


VOTING, OR CHOOSING OUR LEADERS 135 

aged city, just as it costs a needless amount of money 
to keep a badly managed house. 

We can suppose that we all owned shares in a great 
Atlantic liner. Should we not wish the captain 
to be chosen because he was the ablest seaman to 
steer his ship over the sea? Should we choose a 
chief engineer who knew nothing about the care of 
the mammoth engine? Not if he were the joiliest 
good fellow in the world. Should we let landsmen 
pick out the crew of our ship, or should we not rather 
insist that the captain should choose his own crew? 
Should we respect the captain himself, if he got his 
place by promising to take as his mate the son of 
one of the owners of the ship who knew nothing at 
all about sailing the ocean? 

But a city is greater than any ship. The lives and 
happiness of many more people depend upon the skill, 
the character, the good-will, the fidelity of the officers 
of a city, than upon the captain and crew of any 
ship. The passengers of a ship may take only one 
short voyage in her. But people may live all their 
days in one city. The lives of a whole army of 
children are in the hands of the men who steer a 
great city. The people are very foolish if they vote 
for the wrong men, instead of taking pains to find 
whom they can trust. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
The People’s Money 

We have seen that we all own together a great 
deal of property—houses and lands and machines 
and horses and wagons. The town or the city also 
has large sums of money with which it pays for 
work and material. One of our officers is a treasurer. 
He may be chosen or voted for by the people on 
election day; or, he may be appointed by the mayor. 
His duty is to take charge of the people’s money, 
to pay it out when the town or city needs to pur¬ 
chase supplies, and to keep a careful account of 
every dollar. 

The treasurer must be scrupulously honest. He 
must not have any temptation to take any of the 
money intrusted to him. He must not think of 
borrowing any of this money for himself, even if 
he could pay it back twice over. This money is a 
trust, and a treasurer therefore has to be more careful 
of it than he is of his own money. 

The treasurer must not only be honest; he must 
be accurate, he must not make any blunders or mis¬ 
takes, he must count correctly, and he must never 

136 


THE PEOPLE’S MONEY 


137 


forget to put down in his books every smallest item 
of money that comes in or goes out. No careless or 
forgetful person can be a good treasurer, not even 
if he is honest. The treasurer of the people’s money 
must also be brave; he must never be persuaded, 
or frightened, or forced to give up the money in his 



United States Treasury Building, Washington 


charge. If a faithful watch-dog will lay down his 
life for the protection of his master’s house, so will 
a good treasurer die if need be in guarding the 
people’s property. 

He must also be courteous and kindly in his man¬ 
ner. Like the mayor, he stands for the people, and 
must show himself worthy of them. He must be 
sure to treat men as men, whether they are rich or 










THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


i3 8 

poor; whether they are dressed in good clothes or 
in shabby clothes. 

The treasurer may have a number of men and 
women to help him in his office, to collect money, 
and to keep big account books. They must also be, 
like the treasurer, honest, accurate, trustworthy, 
and civil to everybody. One thing for which the 
good scholars in arithmetic and bookkeeping in our 
schools are being fitted, is to make the kind of men 
and women who can be trusted to keep the money 
of the city or the nation. 

What does the city or town do with its public 
money? You can easily guess. A good deal of it 
goes at once to pay for keeping the schools open. 
It goes also for paying the salaries of policemen, and 
firemen, and all the men and women who do work 
for the people, or in other words, the public work 
that we all club together to pay for. Indeed, we 
could hardly do it at all, unless we agreed to pay for 
it together. How could we get a supply of pure 
water from the distant streams or springs, and 
bring it into all the narrow streets of the town? 
Or, how could we lay great sewer pipes and carry 
away all the refuse from our homes? These things 
cost a great deal of money. Most of the people are 
too busy and too poor to do such things for them¬ 
selves; and, therefore, the citizens agree and vote 


THE PEOPLE’S MONEY 


139 


to spend the public money so as to make the city 
clean, healthy, safe, and comfortable. 

Should you not think that the cities and towns 
would become poor by spending millions of dollars 
of the people’s money every year? They would 
become poor if this money went, as in the old days, 
to the support of great lords and kings, living in 
their palaces, and lavishing the money upon them¬ 
selves and their favorites. Our cities suffer even 
now, as we have seen, if selfish men waste or steal 
their money. 

It has at last become possible to lay out our public 
money so that every one will be richer and better off. 
If the roads and streets are good, all the teamsters 
and the merchants can do more business. If the city 
is healthy, people will live longer and they will not 
have to pay huge bills for doctors and nurses. 
The streets when well lighted at night become safer 
to walk and drive on. The schools enable thousands 
of children to become more intelligent and skilful, 
and able to earn better wages when they go to work. 

There is a farmer who spends money enough to 
have the best tools and wagons and mowing or 
reaping machines, and good horses and the best 
kind of cows. He keeps his barns in repair and 
feeds his cattle generously; and he takes care of 
his machines and tools. Altogether he spends a 


140 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


great deal of money upon his farm, and he employs 
men to help him. 

Alongside of this farmer is another who fears to 
spend anything; he is stupid and miserly. He has 
no tools but old and broken ones; he has no machin¬ 
ery to help do his work; he will not pay workmen 
to help him. He will not buy the best cows or horses. 
The rain leaks through the roof of his barn. 

Which of these men, do you think, will make the 
most money out of his farm: the one who spends 
as little as he can; or the man who lays out money 
to keep everything in good working order? 

A city is somewhat like a great farm. The city is 
not poorer, but richer, when its people spend money 
to keep it in excellent condition. Men hear about 
such a city, and they come to live in it, and to edu¬ 
cate their children there. Strangers come to visit 
it, and to buy goods and to spend money there in 
many ways. Its people, being intelligent, do better 
work and get better pay on account of their schools 
and public libraries. As Black Beauty, the horse, 
in the story, worked better for being comfortable 
and happy, so the people are more prosperous for 
being well and happy, for having parks and public 
gardens and playgrounds. Better yet, every child 
in a good city has a chance to make the most 
of himself and to grow up to a fine useful life. 


CHAPTER XIX 

The Taxes, or Sharing and Sharing Alike 

We generally use the word share when something 
good is to be divided among a number of persons. 
We use the same word also when something is to be 
done. We say that each one ought to do his fair 
share of the work, or to pay his share of the cost, 
just as each expects to enjoy his share of the pleasure 
or the profit that comes from the work. 

Every one is eager to have his share of the enjoy¬ 
ment of what the city offers, of the parks and the 
library and the highways; every one wants to have 
a full share of the public money laid out in his own 
part of the city; every one desires a good sidewalk 
in front of his own house. But what shall we say 
about the work and the cost that go to make a fine 
city? Is every one eager to do his fair share of this 
work, or to contribute his part of the cost? Can 
any honest man want to get his full share, and yet 
be unwilling to pay his fair part for the common 
expenses? 

We talk about the “public money.” But where 
does the public money come from? It comes from 


142 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


the pockets of the people. In other words, it comes 
from the work, the earnings, the wages, the salaries, 
the income of all the people. This money that the 
people have to pay is called a tax. This tax is not 
the same amount of money for every one. Would 
it be fair or just if a poor man in a little house paid 
as much as a rich man in a big house? Every one, 
therefore, must pay taxes according to the amount of 
property that he owns. If he has lands and houses 
and a large income, and spends much upon himself 
every year, he ought to pay also largely for the good 
of the city. You would not think any man would 
be so mean as to wish to get off without paying his 
share to the last cent! 

Suppose a party of boys were working hard with 
spades and wheelbarrows to lay out and level a 
tennis-court. You would not think that the little 
boys ought to do as much work and wheel as much 
earth as the large and strong fellows. Suppose a 
big boy could do as much in an hour as a smaller boy 
in the whole afternoon; the big boy would not wish 
to quit work at the end of the hour and leave the 
little one to toil all day. What boy would be so 
mean as to get rid of his share of work and so make 
the others do his work for him? What boy would 
have the face to come and use the tennis-court, 
after having shirked his work and run away while the 


THE TAXES 


143 


others were digging and wheeling earth? We say, 
let us all “ share and share alike/' in the fun and in 
the work too. 

So we say of our taxes. Suppose we divide all the 
cost of our town or city, and find that the average 



Custom House, New York City 


tax, if every one could pay the same amount, would 
be, say fifty dollars for every family. Indeed, in some 
cities it would be more than two hundred dollars 
for every family. Perhaps your teacher or your 
father can find out how much the average tax for 
every family is in your own town or city. 






144 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


Now in some families the children would not have 
enough to eat if the father had to pay as much as 
one hundred dollars a year for his tax to the city. 
Even if a man earned four dollars every day, it 
would take twenty-five days, or about a month, to 
earn the amount of his tax. 

How large a tax do you think that a rich man, who 
spends twenty or more dollars a day on his own 
living, ought to pay in order to do his fair share 
of the city work along with his poor neighbor? 
If the poorer man pays fifty dollars, probably the 
other ought to pay more than five hundred dollars. 
If the poorer man’s family would suffer in trying 
to pay fifty dollars, ought not the other cheerfully 
to pay more than five hundred dollars in order to 
do his just part? Do you not think that the richer 
man ought to prefer out of his abundance to do more 
than his part rather than less? 

It is not always easy to know how much each 
citizen pays as his tax. There is a tax on every 
house and shop and piece of ground in town. If 
your father owns the house you live in, he must 
pay the tax directly, so many dollars a year, to the 
town or city treasurer. But suppose he hires the 
house of some one else. The other man, the owner 
of the house, then pays the tax, but he is very apt 
to think that the man who lives in the house ought 


THE TAXES 


145 



to re-pay the money to him. Perhaps he makes the 
rent of the house high enough to cover his tax. 
Whoever pays the rent, therefore, is likely every 
month to pay a part of the tax. Poor men often 
pay more taxes than they think. 


Making Income Tax Returns 

Why cannot a city have property of its own, as a 
rich man has, and so get money without taxing its 
people? A few cities do have property from which 
they make money. A city may own wharves and 
rent them. The city may have buildings—for 
instance, a market-house. The city of Philadelphia 
once owned its gas works. Glasgow in Scotland, 



THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


146 

and other cities, own street railways. A city might 
well own part or all of the land upon which it is built. 
But no city in the world is yet rich enough to live 
without requiring its people to pay taxes. 

What does the city do when once in a while it needs 
a vast deal of money, for instance, to build a new 
high school or city hall, or to lay out a new park? 
It might raise a little higher tax that year, and pay 
for its new building as fast as it is erected. In fact, 
however, most cities borrow money for such great 
pieces of work. There are rich men, or perhaps 
savings-banks, that are quite willing to lend money 
to a city. But by and by the city must pay back 
every dollar of the borrowed money. Very likely 
it will have to borrow again in order to pay its 
debt when it is due. The debt of some cities is nearly 
as large as the value of all their public property, 
parks and buildings and everything else. The debt 
of the city of Boston for instance is over one hundred 
dollars for every man, woman, and child in the city. 

We think it rather bad business for a man to be 
in debt. If he wishes to buy a new motor car or his 
wife wishes to paper her dining room, we think he 
had better contrive to pay for this extra work out 
of his salary or income. Besides, he has to pay 
interest , or the rent for the use of the money, and 
at last pay back every dollar of his debt. By that 


THE TAXES 


147 


time the new car has very likely worn out, or the 
room needs to be repapered. The man who goes 
into debt and borrows whenever he wants anything 
is likely to become reckless and wasteful. 

It would surely be better if our towns and cities 
were more careful about borrowing money. Cities 
and towns cannot borrow money without paying 
interest for the use of it. Since they borrow great 
amounts of money, they are obliged to pay large 
sums, in the case of great cities, millions of dollars 
every year. The taxes are larger in consequence. 
The poor as well as the rich have to bear this bur¬ 
den of expense for borrowed money. 

If to-day Boston and Chicago and New York and 
St. Louis had no interest money to pay, these cities 
could probably have all the fine new school buildings 
they need, and public music halls besides, without 
either borrowing money or raising any more taxes. 

There is an old saying that “the borrower is the 
servant of the lender.” The people who pay interest 
help support those who lend money. Do you sup¬ 
pose it is good for our country to have a great many 
of its people always in debt, while others live by 
lending their money? Which would you like best — 
to earn your living by some useful work, or to live 
on the interest of money lent to your city? 


CHAPTER XX 

The City Beautiful, or What We Wish for our City 

Let us try to imagine fhe best kind of city, such 
as we should like to live in. It will do no harm if 
we imagine a greater and more beautiful city than 
any which now exists in Europe or America. It 
will do no harm to wish for a city so fine that it 
will take more than a hundred years to bring it 
about. It is not necessary, therefore, that the 
children who help make this picture of a city shall 
all live now in any actual city. Some of them may 
continue to live in the country. Nevertheless, they 
can help us to tell what kind of a city they would 
like now and then to visit. 

In the first place, let us suppose that we are ap¬ 
proaching our fine city on a railroad train or by the 
electric cars. What shall we see? Not, as we often 
see in approaching a city — wretched, ugly, tumble- 
down buildings and mean tenement houses, so that 
we wish to shut our eyes before the train arrives at 
the station — but houses with little gardens about 
them, and flowers in their windows, and trees by the 
sides of the streets. Even the workshops and facto- 

148 


THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 


149 

ries will have vines on their walls wherever vines will 
grow. The people of our city do not like to look 
upon ugly and ruinous things, or to let children 
grow up in narrow, dingy attics and cellars without 
light or air. Every family in the city has some com¬ 
fortable space, and as far as possible a house wholly 



A Street oe Homes in Kansas City 


for itself. The people, therefore, live a little outside 
of the busy, crowded centre of the town, where the 
banks and stores are. 

As we pass along, we see no glaring bills or posters 
painted or printed on the walls and fences to ad¬ 
vertise all kinds of quack medicines and absurd 
shows. People have become tired of seeing every 
rock and field disfigured. 




THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


15° 

As soon as we arrive within the city and begin to 
walk about, we shall admire the cleanness of the 
streets. The people do not throw bits of paper and 
other dirty things into the gutters. No one ever 
spits upon the side-walks. The pavements are 
smooth, so that there is the least possible noise or 
jolting as you ride over them. No one upon the 
streets is smoking. People have made up their minds 
that it is a nuisance and bad manners to blow 
tobacco smoke into other people’s faces. They no 
more think of smoking on the crowded streets than 
of eating their lunches there. Perhaps the men will 
have given up the use of tobacco! 

You turn to ask your way of some one. Any one 
will be glad to stop and answer a stranger’s ques¬ 
tions. The people are busy, but they do not look 
jaded and restless and anxious, as if they had not a 
friend in the world. On the contrary, they look 
contented, happy, and friendly. 

You wish to see some of the public buildings. 
They are the noblest buildings in the city. They 
are simple, but they are built upon honor so as to 
last for centuries. All the schoolhouses have ample 
playgrounds about them. There are gymnasiums 
for both boys and girls in every quarter of the city. 
This accounts for the handsome appearance and 
the erect bearing of the children whom you see 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 151 

going to and from school. There are baths, too, 
free to all the people. No boy or girl grows up 
without learning to swim. Even in the winter, the 
public baths are open just as in the summer. 


A Beautiful Boulevard in Chicago 

The doctors tell us that if we kept all our streets perfectly clean, like 
this beautiful Chicago avenue, we should save the lives of thousands of 
people every year, who now catch disease by breathing poisonous dust. 

We must visit the city hall, where the mayor’s 
or the city manager’s office is, and the treasurer’s, 
and the rooms for the city council. All the business 
of the city is carried on here. The big building is 
not huddled away in a narrow street, and crowded 



152 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


upon by shops and stores. It occupies a great square, 
and nas a garden about it. 

We now go to the fire engine houses. There are 
powerful electric engines for putting out fires, but 
the men tell us that there are not many fires. People 
now build solid and fireproof houses and stores. 
No one is allowed to keep a great wooden fire-trap, 
full of danger to all the city. 

We ask for the police stations and the jail. They 
are not on the main streets, and they are very plain 
buildings. There may be no jail at all. It is the 
pride of the city that the policemen have to arrest 
but few people. Moreover, when any one has so 
little regard for his neighbors as to steal goods and 
money, to assault another, or to be ill-mannered 
and violent, he is sent away from the city altogether. 
The city has a reform school and farm away off in 
the country; no one can return from the reform 
school to the city to live, unless he is prepared to 
work for his living and to behave as a good and 
friendly citizen. 

What do the men do in our fine city, who used 
to spend their evenings in the liquor saloons? They 
must have some way of enjoying themselves. In 
every ward or district of the city there are build¬ 
ings and halls, where at election times the citizens 
have their meetings or caucuses. These halls belong 


THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 


153 


to the people, and they are kept clean and warm and 
light all the time. There are reading rooms in them 
where men can read and write if they wish. They 
contain branches of the public library, so that the 
people can get books near their homes. There are 



Wading Pool in a City Playground 


comfortable rooms where people can talk with their 
friends. There are rooms for games, too, where 
children can play within certain hours, when the 
older people are not using them. 

In each of these halls there is a refreshment room. 
The city health officers see that everything sold in 
it is excellent and wholesome, and the charges are 
low. There are other conveniences for the citizens 










i 5 4 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

and for strangers. The hall is used frequently for 
entertainments, and especially for concerts of music. 
The city keeps a staff of public organists and other 
musicians out of the money that once had to be 
spent for supporting idle and harmful people. 


Reading Room in a Public Library 

Throughout the city there are beautiful churches. 
But no one asks whether they belong to the rich or 
the poor. For all use them alike. They welcome 
every one within their doors. No one is given a 
better seat because of the fine clothes that he wears. 
The people learn in their churches to be true, hon¬ 
orable, courteous, and gentle, as well as reverent 
and fearless. Any one would be ashamed to come 








THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 


155 


away from his church and cheat or injure his neigh¬ 
bor. People differ in some things about their 
religion, but all agree in good-will toward one 
another. They hold the religion of “ loving their 
neighbors as themselves .’ 7 

Let us now take a motor or an electric car and 
go through the magnificent driveways and parks. 
The whole city is dotted with these public grounds. 
No one has to go far to find an open breathing space. 
Wherever there is a fine view by the river side, or 
over the harbor, or upon a hilltop, the city has given 
its people an entrance to it. There are miles of 
walks by the water. We can also see the gardens 
around the hospitals for the sick, and about the 
public homes where old men and women who have 
no children of their own to live with, are kindly cared 
for. 

We see men at work in various places in the pay 
of the city. No one is obliged to work more than 
eight hours a day. But all are doing the city work 
exactly as if it were their own. Is it not really their 
own work? Is it not also work for the sake of their 
own friends, neighbors, and fellow-citizens? No 
one thinks of shirking or dawdling. It is cheerful 
and happy work; the city furnishes the best tools, 
machines, and other helps. The superintendents 
and overseers are as respectful to their men as if 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


156 



The Woolworth Building, New York City 

The tallest building in the world, and one of the most beautiful. 
It is 792 feet high. 




































THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 


157 


they were brothers. No man who works for the 
city, so long as he is faithful, is in any more danger 
of losing his place than any faithful man in the ser¬ 
vice of a wise and good private employer. 

Our beautiful city does more for its people than 
cities did in old times. Perhaps it runs the cars, as 
the big buildings run their elevators, free of any 
charge; it supplies pure milk to its people; the city 
can afford to do more than cities once did. It uses 
its money without waste or loss. Its officers are 
honest, and are always looking after the public 
welfare. Its people are happy and intelligent, and 
every one wishes to purchase goods of their excellent 
workmanship. Trade and business are good. Visi¬ 
tors are always coming to the city from all parts of 
the world. The very best men and women choose 
this city to live in. Let us work and vote to help 
make a real city like this city of our dreams. It is 
quite possible to do this. 


CHAPTER XXI 
A Model Town 

The people who live in cities doubtless have much 
to enjoy. There are all sorts of things to see in the 
shop windows; new buildings are always being 
erected. There are jostling crowds and fine carriages 
and limousines upon the streets; the great thorough¬ 
fares at night are almost as bright as day; there 
are lectures and concerts, movies and plays. A 
great deal of money is spent to make people com¬ 
fortable and happy. But it is very doubtful whether 
the city people are happier than the people who 
live in the country. 

Let us count up some of the good things that the 
country people enjoy. They have the broad fields 
and the orchards and woods, and maybe the ocean 
and an ample view of the great sky over them. 
They can roam about freely, and when the grass is 
mown and the harvests are in, they can climb over 
the walls and fences and go almost wherever they 
please, as if all the land were their own. The city 
boys and girls hardly ever see the cows that give 
them milk, or the lambs at play, or the young colts 
158 


A MODEL TOWN 


159 

frisking in their pastures. The country children 
can make friends and pets of all these creatures. 
They can hear the birds singing, and learn the secret 
of where they make their nests. The boys can go 



A Home Where Sunshine and Fresh Air are Abundant. 


fishing and bathing. In the great pine forests of 
the South the boys go sliding down the steep hill¬ 
sides on the pine needles, smooth as ice. In the 
winter, in all the Northern country, there will often 
be jolly coasting, sleighing, and skating parties. 

The country children see many interesting kinds 







160 the young citizen 

of work going on. They can learn to harness and 
drive the horses, and to ride bareback or in the 
saddle. They can learn how to plant and sow and 
tend the growing corn, the peas and the beans and 
the turnips. City children often do not know the 
difference between one kind of plant and another, 
between spruce trees and pines, between maple 
trees and beeches. But the country children learn 
these things as easily as they breathe. 

The country children may see the blacksmith 
shoeing horses, or putting tires on the wagon-wheels. 
They can stand inside the door of the carpenter’s 
shop, and perhaps help him about his work. They 
can watch the cream as it is being churned into 
butter, and see how cheese is made. In the country, 
people are not often obliged to put up notices as 
they do in the city, “No Admittance,” or “Boys 
not wanted Here.” If boys and girls are civil and 
do not stand in the way, they can look on and see 
how work is done. Indeed, they are often needed 
to help their fathers or mothers. 

There are towns and country places where the 
people are exceedingly well off, perhaps better off 
than any city people are. You will find broad 
streets or roads arched over with noble trees. You 
will see great elms and oaks and chestnut trees that 
were planted long ago by the early settlers of the 



A MODEL TOWN 161 

town. Excellent roads, as good as in any city, 
delightful to walk or ride over, traverse the country 
in every direction. 

There will sometimes be several villages in the 
township, like tiny cities, with clean sidewalks and 
well lighted at night. The houses are well kept and 


A Model Schoolhouse 

tidy, and have nice gardens about them, with flowers 
and fruit trees. You will observe the schoolhouses, 
the town hall, and the public library. The city 
people have larger buildings, but none that are 
better. Neither do they have better teachers for 
their schools. 

As you drive about the town, you will observe 
what good barns and stables the cattle and the 






162 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


horses live in. These country people want their 
animals to be as comfortable as they are themselves. 
Notice the walls and fences; see the farm tools and 
machinery everything is orderly. There is a place 
for everything, and everything seems to be in its 
place. It is not thought quite decent in this town 
to have broken glass in a window, or to keep an 
unsightly woodpile in front of a house, or to leave 
the horse-rake in the field to rust. 

Perhaps some one wants to know where poor 
people live in this fine town. There are not any 
really poor people. Every one has his little home 
and a bit of ground Most of the farmers run motor 
cars or trucks. Telephones connect the houses to¬ 
gether. Very likely there is a little theater in the 
village. No one in town ever suffers for want of 
food. Every one can read and write. 

Perhaps you will be on the main street in the 
village about nine o’clock in the morning. You 
may look up and see a great covered barge filled 
with children. They have come in from their homes, 
two, three, or four miles away, to attend school. 
The town pays for bringing them to school and 
taking them home every day. Once there were 
little schoolhouses, scattered over the town, in 
every district where children lived. Little children 
and grown boys and girls went to school together. 


A MODEL TOWN 


163 

But the school committee found that they could 
not provide good teachers for these small schools; 
neither could the same teacher give proper atten¬ 
tion to young pupils just learning to read, and older 
pupils who wished to study algebra and Latin. 
So the committee bring all the school children in 
the town to a central school, and they place them 
in the classes, where they each belong, some in 
primary classes, some in the grammar school, and 
others in the high school. 

The model town is always looking after better 
ways of making its people happy. Perhaps the 
town needs to have a new supply of pure water, 
and the citizens agree or vote at town meeting to 
spend money for laying the pipes and pumping the 
water. There will be lectures and entertainments in 
the town hall on winter evenings. There will be 
fast trains on the railroad to convey the people 
who wish to visit the neighboring city. City people 
will like to come out to spend their summer in such 
a fine town, or even to live there all the year. 

How is it that one town can be vastly better to 
live in than another? It depends upon the character 
of the citizens. In some towns the people have a 
great deal of public spirit; that is, they are generous, 
enlightened, and civilized. They want the very 
best things for themselves and their children, and 


164 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


their neighbors also. Instead of being selfish and 
miserly, they are willing to be taxed and to pay their 
money for good schools, and good roads, and what¬ 
ever the whole town needs. They are glad to work 
together, “each for all and all for each.” The 
public-spirited citizen does not say, “I have a good 
well and all the water I want for myself; I do not 
wish to spend my money to get water for other 
people.” He asks whether it will be for the good of 
the whole town to have a public water-supply, 
and he votes accordingly. 

The public-spirited citizen is not so mean as to 
say: “The road in front of my house is good enough; 
I do not wish to pay taxes to build a new road for 
the people at the other end of their town.” He 
asks whether the new road is needed. Is it for the 
good of the town? Is it not fair to give all the people 
the benefit of good roads? 

The public-spirited people go to town meeting, and 
plan together for the welfare of their town. They 
do not choose careless selectmen or treasurers, 
but they seek the best men in the town for these 
offices. They do not ask whether the best man 
belongs to their party, or to their church, or whether 
he is a relative of their own. They only need to 
know that he is faithful, and that he will do his best 
for the good of the people. Then they elect him. 


A MODEL TOWN 



165 

Perhaps you have seen a town where everything 
was slack and slovenly. The houses had no paint 
upon them; the barns were tumbling to ruin; the 
fences were down; old hats were thrust into the 
broken windows; there were places to buy whiskey 
in the village; you could see through the cracks in 


A Well-made Road 

the walls of the mean little schoolhouses; no one ever 
wishes to buy a farm in such a town. What was 
the trouble with the wretched little town. Was it 
because its people were poor? But what made and 
kept them poor? It was because the people lacked 
generosity and public spirit. They were narrow¬ 
minded, mean, and selfish toward their own town. 
The truth is, you never can have a model town till 







THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


166 

its citizens learn to be generous, to work together, 
and to help one another in making their town com¬ 
fortable, prosperous, and happy. 

In the city of Boston there is a large room called 
“The Town Room.” It is maintained by a great 
friend of children and their sports, Mr. Joseph Lee. 
It is full of pictures and photographs to show what 
people are doing to improve their towns and to 
make them beautiful. Anyone is welcome to visit 
the Town Room or to write to the Librarian and 
find out the interesting efforts on foot to make vil¬ 
lage and country life happy. 


CHAPTER XXII 
Our State and Our Governor 

You all know what the capital of your State is, 
and how far away it is from where you live. You 
know how your State is bounded and what other 
States are its neighbors. Perhaps you have been 
in the capital. The State House is there. It may 
not be the most beautiful public building in all the 
State, but it is very likely the largest and most 
costly. There are many handsome offices in it, 
and two chambers, or halls, where the men meet who 
make the laws for the people of the State. There 
is a room for the governor, and probably a fine 
library with many books. 

We have seen how the people of a town or city 
join or club together in managing their public busi¬ 
ness. They meet for themselves, or else choose some 
of their men to meet in their behalf, and they plan 
together for the interests of the people. They must 
all bear their part of the cost of taking care of their 
town or city. 

Now in somewhat the same way all the towns and 
cities, or in some States the counties and the cities, 
167 


i68 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


join together and select men to do business for the 
people of their State. It would never be possible 
to get all the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, 
of the people into one place. But they choose men, 
perhaps every two years, the senators from large 
districts of the State, and the representatives from 
the cities and towns or counties, to go to the capital 
and talk and vote in their name. Whatever the 
Senate and the House of Representatives agree to do, 
the people must accept, as if they had done it them¬ 
selves. The two chambers, the Senate and the 
Representatives, make the Legislature. 

Why should there be two bodies of men, instead 
of one, to do business for the people? We can only 
say that this is an old custom. Some think that it 
it is a foolish custom; others say that two bodies of 
men who must agree about everything which they 
do, are likely to be more careful not to do foolish 
things. It does not really make much difference 
whether there are two chambers or only one. But 
it makes a great deal of difference whether the people 
choose their best men to go to the Capitol, or let 
ignorant, selfish, or dishonest men represent them. 

There are always too many of the wrong kind of 
men who wish to sit in the great arm-chairs in the 
Senate chamber, or in the Assembly room in the 
Capitol, to draw the pay for themselves and to 



OUR STATE AND OUR GOVERNOR 169 

have a hand in appointing their own friends to 
offices. There have never as yet been enough men 
who go to the Legislature for the good of the people, 
and for that only! 

As the city has a mayor, or head officer, so each 


State Capitol, Austin, Texas 

Texas has an area much larger than the Republic of Germany. What 
a great duty the men have who sit in its Capitol, and what a grand 
chance they have in making good laws for millions of people! 

State has a Governor. He is the highest officer in 
the State. His duty is to be always looking out, 
not for the interest of the town where he happens 




THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


170 

to live, or the city where he owns a mill, or for his 
party or his labor union, but for all the people in the 
towns and cities and counties of the State. He is 
Governor for the sake of the whole State. 

When the members of the Legislature meet in 
the Capitol, the Governor addresses them and 
publishes his message to tell them what he thinks 
is needed for the welfare of the State. If the Legis¬ 
lature makes a bad law or votes to waste the State 
money, the Governor must tell them what he thinks 
about it, and he must ask them to vote upon it more 
carefully again. The rule is that the Governor must 
sign with his own hand every law that the Legis¬ 
lature makes. If he thinks any law bad for the 
people, it will take as many as two-thirds of the 
senators and the representatives, who vote upon it, 
to pass it against the veto of the Governor. 

It sometimes happens that the Governor does not 
like a bill or law well enough to sign it, but he does 
not object to it enough to wish to veto it. In this 
case, after a certain number of days, it becomes law 
without his signing it. 

The members of the Legislature meet to talk and 
plan and to vote. After they get through with 
making plans and laws for the good of the State, 
they return to their own homes, where most of them 
have business of their own. There are regular offi- 



OUR STATE AND OUR GOVERNOR 171 

cers or servants of the State, who give their whole 
time to carrying out the votes or laws that the 
Legislature passes. The Governor appoints many of 
the chiefs, or superintendents, of the work of the 


Hall of Representatives, Pennsylvania Capitol 

State. In some States he appoints judges for the 
courts. 

You can see what a wise and courageous man the 
Governor needs to be in order to secure first-rate 
officers to serve the people. He needs to know who 
the good and honest men and women are in all parts 



172 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


of the State. Like the mayor of a city, he must be 
able to say No, if ever the men of his party ask him 
to appoint an unfit man to serve the State. What 
right has he to put unfit men into office? This 
would be as bad as if a carpenter put rotten timber 
into a house. 

The Governor is chosen by all the people of the 
State. In other words, all the citizens are expected 
to vote for a Governor, and the man who receives 
more votes than any one else is elected. It is a great 
honor which the people give to their Governor in 
choosing him as their head counsellor and chief. 

What is the use of having a State government? 
Why cannot the towns and cities make all their own 
rules and laws and take care of all the public busi¬ 
ness? In other words, what does the State do for its 
people? 

Suppose for a moment that every city or town had 
its own set of laws. Suppose that what was allowed 
in your town was forbidden in the next town. Sup¬ 
pose also that every town had to keep a judge and a 
court-house and a sheriff. How clumsy all this 
would be! You see it is necessary for the people 
in all the towns to do many things together, instead 
of doing them separately. Thus it is well to have 
one set of laws for the whole State, and a few courts 
rather than a court in every village. 


OUR STATE AND OUR GOVERNOR 


173 


What if the people of one town built a dam across 
a river and flooded the meadows in the towns higher 
up the river? What if the great city wished to 
build a reservoir and to take all the water of the 
ponds miles away in the country? There must be 



Capitol of Minnesota at St. Paul 


some order or authority in the State so that no town 
can do harm to the people of another town. 

The State needs great highways to connect all 
parts of its country. Perhaps it needs canals and 
railroads. Who shall say where the canals must 
run? Who shall see that the railroads pay justly 
for taking people’s land? Who shall decide whether 
it is wise to allow a new railroad to be built? The 







THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


174 

Legislature must guard the interests of the people in 
all such matters. 

The Governor and the Legislature have many 
poor and unfortunate persons to provide for. There 
are orphan children in the State; there are aged and 
helpless people; there are insane people who cannot 
take care of themselves; there are those who have 
broken the laws. Some of these unfortunate people 
are not citizens of any town. They have never 
earned their living anywhere. The State must take 
care of them; it must build great homes or hospitals 
for them; or its officers must find kind friends Who 
will adopt the orphan children. The State must also 
see that all the towns have good schools. What if 
a town were too poor or mean to give its children a 
decent education? These ignorant children would 
be dangerous, wherever they went to live in other 
towns. The laws of the State therefore require 
every town to maintain schools. If necessary, the 
rich towns must help the poor towns rather than let 
the children of the State suffer. 

The work of the State costs a great deal of money. 
Where will this money come from? It must come 
from the people themselves. The State is only 
another name for the people. Every town (or 
county) and every city must contribute its part to 
the State treasury. The richer the town, the larger 


OUR STATE AND OUR GOVERNOR 175 

will its just share be toward paying the salaries of 
the servants of the State and doing the State work. 
But the city or town has no money to pay, except 



Capitol of New York at Albany 


what comes from the labor and the property of the 
people. Their taxes support the State. 

In some countries, the State has property of its 
own. In some of our States, too, there are vast 
areas of public lands. In every State all the most 
beautiful places, such as Niagara Falls, the White 
Mountains, the Adirondacks, the beaches on the 





THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


176 

seashore, ought to be held by the State and kept 
open to the people forever. 

We have said that all the people must pay their 
share of the taxes. But suppose that the people of 
some city, or those in one part of the State, were un¬ 
willing to pay. Would it be fair for a few people, or 
for one part of the State, to refuse to help in doing 
what the larger number of the people wished to do? 
What if every one refused to do his part when¬ 
ever he chose not to help? Do you not see that this 
would be mean and selfish, as when spoiled children 
sulk and stop playing if they cannot have their own 
way? How can you expect the others to help you 
when your side has its innings, unless you will stand 
by and play when the other side is at the bat? 

But what if the other party does what seems to us 
wrong? In this case we can talk with our neighbors 
and try to persuade them to change their minds. We 
can seek to elect the men who agree with us. We 
can try to alter a bad law and make a good one. 
We must not forget that we sometimes make mis¬ 
takes ourselves. We must be fair to the other party, 
and give them a chance to persuade us. Is there 
any one in the world so wrong-headed and stupid 
as the person who never changes his mind? 

What sort of State do you wish to live in? It is a 
State that has just laws for all, where no one can 


OUR STATE AND OUR GOVERNOR 


177 


easily oppress or take advantage of another, where 
the same laws hold for the poor as for the rich, where 
strangers are safe and respected. It is a State whose 
schools are the best in the world, whose children are 
happy, where every one has a chance to make the 
most of himself. It is a State that takes the kindest 
care of its unfortunate people, that tries to cure its 
sick, and to make good citizens even out of those 
who have done wrong. It is a State whose officers, 
from the Governor down, are the real and faithful 
servants of the people. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
The Head of the Nation 

The capital of the United States is the city of 
Washington. Every one knows for what great and 
good man this city was named. Perhaps you, or 
some one of your friends, have visited the beautiful 
city on the banks of the Potomac River. You can 
tell how far away it is from where you live, and 
over what railroads you must ride in order to 
reach it. 

What are the first objects that any one would 
see as he rode into Washington? One of them is 
the tall monument to the honor of “the Father 
of his country.” It is faced with white marble 
and is one of the tallest structures ever erected 
by man. It is not only very high, but beautiful 
also. 

Another great building is the Capitol, or the 
State House of our Nation. It stands on a hill 
and has a grand dome, upon which is a cupola, 
to which one can climb and look out over the 
whole city, and to the distant mountains between 
which the Potomac flows. The Capitol contains 

178 


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p p p 

r+ 

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180 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

many offices, and two halls, where men come 
together, chosen from every State of our Union, 
to consult for the welfare of all the people of the 
Nation. One hall is for the Senate. Two senators 
come from each State, from the little States like 
Delaware, as well as from the great States like 
New York. 

The other hall in the Capitol is for the House 
of Representatives. The great States send many 
representatives, as many as thirty or more. A 
little State may send only one man. You can 
easily find out how many representatives your 
own State sends. Perhaps you can tell who the 
representative is for your own district. 

The Senate and the Representatives make the 
Congress of the United States. The business of 
the Congress is to think for the people. As the 
City Council thinks for the city, and the Legis¬ 
lature thinks for the State, so the Congress thinks 
for the nation, that is, for all the people in all 
the States. What good and bright thinkers the 
members of our Congress ought to be, in order to 
think well for the interests of more than a hundred 
millions of people. Indeed, they have to think 
about people over the sea also; for the things which 
our Congress does, whether right or wrong, whether 
wise or foolish, are likely to help or to hurt all 


THE HEAD OF THE NATION 


181 



Washington Monument 

This is another of the wonders of the New World. Think of the highest 
building you know, and find out how many times higher this great shaft 
is— 555 feet high! All the States contributed stones to build into the 
walls. You can go to the top of it. 



182 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


the people in the world. Thus, if the United 
States shuts its doors against the people who 
wish to come here from Italy, or from Germany, 
those countries will become crowded and perhaps 
uncomfortable. Or, if the United States lays a 
tax upon the silks, or the woollen cloths, that 
come from France and England, it may be that 
the French and English workmen will get less 
pay in consequence of our tax. 

The members of our Congress must not only 
think for us, but they are chosen to make laws for 
the whole nation, as each Legislature makes laws 
for the people of its State. Whatever they agree 
to, or vote for, or rather whatever the larger number 
of them agree to in our behalf, we are all sup¬ 
posed to agree to. We must obey their laws and we 
must pay our money, as they decree, to help bear 
the cost of our government. 

See what a number of sets of rules, or laws, the 
people must obey. They must keep the town, or 
city (or county) rules. They must heed the State 
laws, and they must also observe the national laws. 
But, as we have seen, these various laws are not 
meant to burden us. They are really intended for 
our convenience and benefit, like the rules of a 
school, or a store. If our Congress acts wisely, 
they are for the sake of order and justice. 


THE HEAD OF THE NATION 183 

There are some things that not even the people 
of a great State like Texas or Illinois, can do well 
without the help of all the other States. Think 
of the great railroads and express companies with 
lines that run across the continent. Think of 



The Library of Congress 


the great mills and shops that send their goods 
over all the country. Think of the men who travel 
from one State to another as agents to sell the 
merchants’ wares. There must be laws to govern 
and to assist the men and the companies who go 
for their business from one State into the other 
States. No great company must be allowed to 







THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


184 

do injustice anywhere; no State must pass laws 
to hurt the people of another State. The people 
in Maine or Alabama who buy goods from the 
New York merchants must not be made to pay 
taxes for bringing their goods across any State lines. 
There must be laws also for the business of the post- 
offices through all the country, and for many other 
affairs which concern every man, woman, and child 
in the United States. 

The nation has a good deal of land that belongs 
to us all, especially in the great Western States and 
in Alaska. There are Indians who must be justly 
treated. The settlers must not rob them of their 
lands, as they have too often done. The Indians must 
be encouraged to become good American citizens. 

Our nation has neighbors; we mean the other 
nations, Canada to the north of us, and Mexico and 
the Republics of South America, and the peoples 
over the Atlantic and across the Pacific Ocean. 
Congress must pass laws and make treaties, so 
that we shall treat each nation justly, and so that 
we shall also be justly treated. 

You see what a great deal of puzzling business 
Congress has to think about. It is no wonder that 
it has built, at the expense of the nation, a grand 
library, close to the Capitol, filled with books on 
every subject. Whenever a member of Congress or 


THE HEAD OF THE NATION 185 

of one of its committees needs to know about any 
matter of history, or geography, or about the laws 
of nations, here are the books to consult which give 
the needful information. The library may also be 
visited by the people, and by strangers in Wash¬ 
ington. 

There is a famous room in the Capitol where you 



The White House and the President’s Office 


may see perhaps the greatest court of justice in the 
world. The nine members of this court are dressed 
in black silk robes. It is the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Here lawyers come from every State 
of our Union to bring difficult cases. Sometimes a 
State has passed laws that seem unjust to the 
citizens of another State. Sometimes there is a 










i86 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


question about a new invention; and two or three 
men each think that they ought to have the patent 
right for it. Sometimes Congress has levied a tax 
which business men do not think is just. What if 
one of these judges were not perfectly honest and 
fearless? The rights and liberties of all of us would 
be endangered. 

Who has not heard of the White House in Wash¬ 
ington? Every visitor goes to see it. The Presi¬ 
dent of the United States lives in this house; it 
is our national palace. As the Congress is the 
head of the nation to think and make laws for us; 
as the Supreme Court is the head of the nation 
to decide knotty questions; so the President is the 
head of the nation to act for us, and to see that 
the people’s laws are carried out. A Governor is 
chosen by all the people of a State to do the 
people’s will; so the President is the choice of 
the people of all the States. As a mayor is the 
head servant of a city, so the President is the 
head servant of the nation. The best teacher who 
ever lived said that the greatest man in the world 
was the one who served most. Our President is 
thus chosen to serve and help, not himself, but 
our millions of people. 

Our President could not begin to do his duty for 
the people without aid. He chooses a Cabinet , or 


THE HEAD OF THE NATION 187 

council, of men to help him. These are his Secre¬ 
taries, or advisers. The most important of these 
advisers is the Secretary of State. The famous 
Daniel Webster once held this office. Perhaps 
some one from your State has held the same place. 



A Bird’s-Eye View of West Point 


This Secretary ought to be as wise as the President. 
He must advise the President about foreign affairs, 
concerning many different nations. He must not 
only be perfectly fair, but he must be courteous and 
friendly. He meets the ambassadors and ministers, 
that is, the agents, whom other governments send to 
Washington. Suppose he could not keep his temper, 




i88 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


but insulted these foreign gentlemen; or suppose 
he wrote disrespectful letters to the governments 
in England or Japan; he might provoke another 
nation to war; or suppose he vexed and fretted 
weaker nations and made us Americans unpopular in 
their countries. The Secretary of State must not only 
be a friendly and courteous man but courageous and 
truthful also. His place is too high and responsible 
for any mean or selfish man, who wishes merely 
to draw the salary or have the honor of the 
office. 

Next to the Secretary of State comes the Sec¬ 
retary of the Treasury. He is really the head 
treasurer of the vast moneys of the nation. He 
must know all about business; he must be able 
to advise as to the fairest methods of raising money 
for the government; he must be honest and accu¬ 
rate beyond suspicion; he must be fearless to tell 
the President, or the members of Congress, exactly 
what he thinks for the public welfare. 

There is a Secretary of War, and a Secretary of 
the Navy, but the children may hope that, after 
the horrors of the Great War, the peoples of the 
world will soon make up their minds to put away 
their armies and navies and never destroy each other 
any more. Perhaps we shall then have a Secretary 
of Public Works. 



THE HEAD OF THE NATION 189 

Another of the President’s advisers has the care 
of all the lands of the nation, and must guard the 
interests of the Indian tribes. He is called the 
Secretary of the Interior. Another is the President’s 
adviser about matters of law; he is the Attorney- 
General. Another is at the head of the post-offices 


A Birdseye View of Annapolis 

of the country; he is the Postmaster-General. 
Another must keep informed about all matters that 
concern the farmers. A large part of the wealth 
of the nation springs from the soil. What if some 
dangerous blight threatened the wheat? Or some 
foreign pest menaced the lives of the cattle? The 
Secretary of Agriculture, with the help of his 





igo THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

agents must be on guard to save the nation from 
the perils of insects, and from the diseases of 
plants. He must publish reports and pamphlets, 
so that the farmers may know how they can raise 


© Klinedinst 

Meeting of the Cabinet 

larger and better crops and thus make our country 
richer. A Secretary of Commerce sits in the Presi¬ 
dent’s Cabinet to advise about the interests of our 
vast trade with every part of the world. There 
is also a Secretary of Labor to seek the welfare 




THE HEAD OF THE NATION 


191 

of the hosts of working people, who mine our 
coal and iron and copper, and keep the wheels 
running in mills and factories. 

The President, with the help of his advisers, 
or Cabinet, must not only do what Congress bids, 
but he must help the Congress to see what is 
for the welfare of the nation. A Congressman is 
too likely to ask, 'What is for the good of my 
State, or of the people of the district that elected 
me?” The President should take a broader view 
of public business. He ought to be watching for 
the good of all the people. He is like a man on a 
tower, who sees farther than the man on the ground 
below. 

The Representatives serve for two years and 
may then be reelected. The Senators serve for 
terms of six years. The President serves for four 
years. A Vice-President also is chosen for four years. 
He presides over the Senate and succeeds the Presi¬ 
dent in case the latter dies before he finishes his term. 
Sometimes the President is liked so well that he is 
chosen a second time. Perhaps you can name the 
Presidents, beginning with Washington, to whom our 
people have done the honor of reelecting them. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
The Army of Peace 

Everyone knows that in the old barbarous days 
people thought the business of a government was 
mostly to be ready for war and therefore to main¬ 
tain the army and navy. But we are learning, 
as ex-President Roosevelt once said in a fine speech 
in Christiania, that the splendid law of the Golden 
Rule holds good for nations as it holds among 
neighbors. For all nations are neighbors to one 
another. Already we have in the United States 
as other countries have, what we may call a 
great “army of peace”: that is, of men and women 
whose work it is to carry on the friendly enter¬ 
prises of civilized men. 

As a stranger walks or rides about the streets 
of the city of Washington, he will be shown im¬ 
mense buildings, filled with offices. These great 
buildings belong to the government. A multitude 
of people are at work in them daily. There is 
the Treasury Building, with hundreds of clerks, 
who attend to keeping the records of the money busi¬ 
ness of the government. Other officers and clerks in 

192 


THE ARMY OF PEACE 


193 


the great cities help in collecting and paying out the 
money. 

A large company of men and women serve 
in the Army and Navy building and keep the 
records and accounts. You can find there lists 
of the names of soldiers and sailors. In another 
building are the lists and accounts of the thousands 
of men and women and orphan children, scattered 
over the land, who receive pensions, or payments 
of money from our government; for the nation 
is unwilling to let any family suffer whose bread¬ 
winner has spent his life, or has been injured, 
in the service of the country. The Pension Office 
in Washington, with its branch offices in different 
parts of the country, requires a considerable force 
of helpers to do the work and to see that all the 
pensions are promptly paid. 

One of the most interesting places to see in 
Washington is the Patent Office. Whoever is 
bright enough to invent an ingenious contrivance, 
from a new kind of water-wheel to a flying ma¬ 
chine, may send to this office and have his inven¬ 
tion recorded in his name. Then no one can use 
or sell this invention without the permission of 
the inventor. You may see at the Patent Office 
a model of almost every invention that has been 
made in the last hundred years. A company of 


194 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 

clerks are on service all the time to take care of 
these models and plans, and to record new in¬ 
ventions as fast as they come. 

We have spoken of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. You must not think that all the 
business of justice for the nation is done by the 
men who sit in this grand room at the Capitol. 
The Supreme Court attends to none but important 
questions. In every part of the United States 
there are courts and judges and lawyers and a 
force of assistants in the service of our government. 

What do you suppose is the largest business of 
our government? It is the Post-office. It em¬ 
ploys scores of thousands of men. It has one of 
the greatest of the buildings in Washington. It 
has an office in every little village. Its carriers 
in their uniform are on the streets of every city. 
Yes! The Postmaster-General may be said to 
command a great army of peace. All these serve 
for the convenience and comfort of the people. 
It is their duty to see that letters, papers, books 
and all sorts of things trusted to the mails, shall 
go as fast and as promptly as possible. Some¬ 
times they go on railroads, sometimes by steamers, 
often on motor-stages, sometimes on horseback. 
The post-office sends our letters for us, not only 
through our own country from Eastport in Maine 


THE ARMY OF PEACE 


x 95 


to Portland in Oregon; it undertakes to carry 
the mail over the world; it has its treaties with 
other governments; who all help to carry one 
another’s mails; thus, the post office really binds 
the world together. 



The United States Supreme Court Chamber 


One of your friends may be travelling in Egypt; 
or he may be a sailor at Hong Kong. Our govern¬ 
ment, or “ Uncle Sam,” as we sometimes call it, 
only asks you to put one of his little stamps upon 
your letter, and presently fast steamships are 
passing it on around the world till it finds your 
friend. Perhaps men of a dozen different nations, 






THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


196 

or knowing twenty different languages, help the letter 
along. The whole world takes hold, like our nation, 
in supporting the Post-office. 

Who has never seen a lighthouse? If you visit 
the seashore, if you go down the harbor of any 
city on the coast, if you sail a few hours along the 
shore on the ocean, or on the Great Lakes, if 
you travel down the Mississippi River — there is 
no place where steamers go, or vessels sail at 
night, where you do not see the lighthouses 
shining. They are on hills and headlands; they are on 
little islands and on bare rocks; sometimes they 
are ships moored fast by heavy anchors, near 
dangerous shoals. 

Our government builds the lighthouses and com¬ 
mands men to keep the lights always burning. In the 
darkest night, when the storm lowers over the sea, 
the faithful men must watch and tend the lamps, 
and if the fog sweeps in, they must sound the fog¬ 
horn, perhaps for days at a time. 

The lighthouses are not for our own sailors and 
ships alone; they are for the English and Italian 
and French sailors, as well. We wish no poor 
mariners to be wrecked on our reefs; we wish to 
give our lights for the help of all who sail the sea. 

What we do for others all the nations do for us. 
You will sail along the English coast and every 


THE ARMY OF PEACE 


197 



Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse 

This tall, stone lighthouse stands on a dangerous ledge and warns 
the ships to keep off, and shows them the way to harbor. 

cape sends out its friendly light. You will sail 
down into the Mediterranean Sea, and the moun¬ 
tainous coast of Spain or Italy wih show you 
your way from light to light. Ah the world is 



THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


198 

becoming one family of nations with their common 
system of lighthouses. 

The government does more for the sailors than 
to light the shores for their ships. On every 
perilous point on the coast where ships sometimes 
go to wreck, you will see the life-saving stations, 
each with its little company of men, and its 
stanch boats ready to be launched at a moment’s 
notice. There men patrol and watch the shore 
for many miles. They take turns in looking out 
upon the sea at night. Sometimes they send up 
rockets to warn the ships not to come too near 
the rocks. No soldiers are braver than these men 
must be. In terrible winter storms, or when the 
tornado comes, they must risk their lives to save 
the lives of others. They never stop to ask 
whether the people in danger are their own friends 
or utter strangers. It is their duty to save the 
lives of foreign men and women just as if they were 
Americans. 

It would take a long time to tell of all the 
kinds of work in which our government must em¬ 
ploy its servants. Men are on duty among Indian 
tribes, some to teach in their schools, and others 
to show the Indians how to farm their lands. 
Chemists are at work for the government, making 
experiments about soils and plants. They publish 


THE ARMY OF PEACE 


199 


to the world what they find out. A board of 
health watches against disease, and sends its doc¬ 
tors to examine ships coming to our ports from 
foreign lands. 

A considerable number of men are in the 



U. S. Naval Observatory, Georgetown, D. C. 


How does any one know exactly what time it is? By the clock or 
by watches. But who can set the clocks and watches, so that they 
will tell the truth? The skilful men in the observatories tell us every 
day, by watching the sun, precisely when it is noon. They tell us also 
about the sunrise and the moon-rise and the tides, and help make our 
almanacs. 


Weather Bureau. They watch the skies and 
telegraph the movement of winds and storms and 
report in the newspapers to every part of the 
land. They tell the city people when to carry 
umbrellas, and the farmers whether the day will be 
fair for harvesting the crops, and advise them of the 
approach of frost; they announce many hours in 





200 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


advance when severe storms will sweep along the 
coasts, and they display danger signals to warn the 
sailors not to leave their safe harbors. 

Altogether we have likened the thousands of 
men and women who serve our government to 
an army of soldiers. But it is an army of peace 
and not of war. It is not to frighten men, but 
to help and benefit them. It is not for the good 
of Americans alone, but for the good of all people. 
We call it the Civil Service; and we require exam¬ 
inations of most of those who wish to enter it, so 
as to be sure that they know enough to do their 
work. 

What kind of men do we want for this colossal 
service of the people? The men, and women too, 
must be courageous and obedient; they must not 
serve for pay, or for a pension, or to get honor 
for themselves, or in order to be promoted to a 
higher office. They must serve as Washington 
and Lincoln served, simply for the sake of help¬ 
ing their country. The country wants faithful 
men to keep its accounts and to carry its mails. 
It wants kind and courteous men in its offices, 
who will do their best for the convenience of its 
people. It wants fearless and upright judges who 
will do no wrong. It wants friendly men in the 
Indian agencies, to help the Indians to become 


THE ARMY OF PEACE 


201 


civilized. It wants men of courage in its light¬ 
houses and at the life-saving stations. Our govern¬ 
ment cannot really afford to have mean and selfish 
men anywhere. What does every good American 
wish most of all? He wishes that his work may 
make his country richer and happier; but not 
his own country alone. He wishes to serve his 
own country in such a fine way that the neighbor 
nations may be better off also. All useful work 
helps the whole world. 

Finally, one very hard thing we are obliged to 
ask of our civil servants. We must often require 
them to give up their work and their pay, when 
they are no longer needed. Thus, after the Great 
War thousands of men and women had to be dis¬ 
missed and to find something else to do. The 
nation could not afford to keep useless people on 
its pay roll. Thus, the good citizen must be willing 
to “step down and out,” when his service does no 
good. 


CHAPTER XXV 
How to Get on with People 

What different people we find in the world! 
What different kinds of children are in the same 
family and go to the same school! Some are 
bright and others are slow; some are civil and 
obliging and others are surly; some are generous; 
some are stingy; some are honorable, while others 
are untruthful and cannot be trusted. We must 
live and work alongside of all these different people, 
but how can we contrive not to jostle against 
one another and to hurt one anothers feelings? 

In the first place, we must recollect that we 
perhaps seem at times queer and disobliging, or 
stingy and unfair to the others. The fact is, we 
all have much the same human nature inside of 
us; we are more like each other than we are 
different. Something that we might call the “old 
animal” is in us. This animal side of us is 
irritable and greedy and quarrelsome. Sometimes 
too, children and grown people are “up and 
dressed,” when they are ill and ought to be in 
bed; this makes them fretful and disagreeable. 


202 


HOW TO GET ON WITH PEOPLE 


203 

Luckily, there is a good, friendly, honest self 
in us. This good self—our real and true self — 
is not always at home, but it is usually somewhere 
about the premises, and whoever will be patient 
with us may call it up, especially if we make it 
our habit to listen for the call. 

What we need is to make the good self the 
captain of our lives, and to keep the old animal 
out of sight; he must not be allowed to bite 
anyone; he must not even bark and growl at 
our neighbors. All that he is good for is to tend 
the furnace in the basement of the house. The 
good self in us always wants to be friendly to 
everyone; our good self finds the good self in 
the others; the good self is eager to learn how to 
help our fellows. There is no end to the beautiful 
things which all the good selves in a home, or a 
club, or a school, or a town, can do by thinking 
and pulling together, instead of pulling apart. 
This kind of work is great fun; everyone who 
tries it, likes it. 

See how this works with the different kinds of 
people who live in the different countries, east and 
west. They have various shades of complexion 
and speak diverse languages and follow different 
customs and religions. Possibly we have heard 
bad stories about them, that they are vain or cruel 


204 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


or ill-mannered; they may have heard bad stories 
against us. This is because we do not know each 
other. The ugly stories might make us enemies, 
if we were so foolish as to believe them and not 
to hear the good side and the good stories of 
our neighbors. The truth is, that the different 
races and nations in every part of the earth are 
more like us than they are different from us. 
All these peoples have the good and kind self in 
them, as we do. The old animal bothers them as 
it bothers us. They and we answer alike to friendly 
greetings and kindly conduct. If we grew up with 
them, and went to school with them, and thus had 
a chance to know them, we should find among them 
plenty of friends; the better we became acquainted 
the more we should like and respect them. You 
cannot name a race or nation on the face of the 
earth of whom this is not true. We are all made 
to work together. 

You see, the nations are all engaged in working 
out a grand scheme. It is as if we were building 
a magnificent city. It is not enough to make the 
United States prosperous and happy and then to 
stop. We can never have a contented America, 
unless the other nations are prospering with us. 
Whatever hurts them hurts us. No man can be 
happy alone, and no nation can be happy without 


HOW TO GET ON WITH PEOPLE 


205 


the others. So we have a joint enterprise with 
every other nation; England is in it and France 
and Italy; Japan is in it; Germany is in it and 
Russia; the people of Africa are necessary for us 
and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 

Why do we study Geography? One reason is 
that we may become better acquainted with our 
neighbors in South America and Europe and every¬ 
where else. We learn the interesting story about 
the people of India and Ceylon and Egypt, and 
what splendid buildings they have erected. We 
learn to respect the skill of the native people of 
Australia and New Zealand and our own American 
Indians. 

What good does it do our American people to 
travel over the world? The more we travel, the 
more we learn to know and admire other peoples, 
our brothers and cousins, with whom we have to 
construct a better world. We bring home beauti¬ 
ful vases and porcelain from China, and we learn 
how the Chinese nation, without ever trying to 
conquer and destroy other people, has had the most 
permanent civilization that has ever been known. 
We visit the ancient cities of England and Italy 
and Spain where men have dwelt together long 
before Columbus sailed to discover America. 

Think now what friendly things, and useful for all 


206 the young citizen 

of us, we are already doing along with the other 
nations. You can write a letter in any little vil¬ 
lage in the United States, and put a bit of a stamp 
upon the envelope and send it for a nickle to the 
most distant part of the world. You can send a 
telegram which will be flashed over the continents, 
or under the oceans, to Manila, or Auckland in 
New Zealand. 

All the nations help us to send our letters and 
messages and Christmas gifts. When you trav¬ 
el abroad you will see the lighthouse towers of 
the different countries, lighting your ship along 
their shores. We thus all unite to protect the 
trade of the world and to welcome each other’s 
ships to our harbors. Other governments besides 
our own support life-saving stations, where once 
pirates sailed and cruel men plundered the ship¬ 
wrecked mariners. We all now extend a helping 
hand to vessels in distress. 

We often also lend some of our best men and 
women to teach the schools in countries where the 
people are making a hard fight against ignorance. 
We welcome students in our colleges from Japan 
and Mexico and South America and sometimes 
from old England. We have great meetings from 
time to time of the men of science and the dele¬ 
gates of the working people and the teachers of 


HOW TO GET ON WITH PEOPLE 


207 


religion from all countries. Thus we learn to 
know and understand and like each other better 
than ever before. 

Have we room in the world for enemy nations 
or races? Why should we have enemies, when 
once we see that we are here to help each other 
in one great enterprise — to secure the welfare 
and happiness of all men. There are no outsiders 
in this work. No one will hate us, or wish to 
hurt us, if once we try to play the part of friends 
to all people. We propose to be the pioneers in 
every generous effort. We wish never to see men 
engaged in stupid quarrels and wars. We can 
henceforth do better than to build battleships and 
forts. We are bound to be the builders of a new 
and better world for the coming peoples of every 
land. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Summary: The Flag 

Let us use the wings of our imagination and 
take a journey all the way from Canada to the 
Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic ocean to Alaska. 
We shall see our flag floating over schoolhouses 
and post-offices and government buildings. We 
shall find it on ail the holidays above many a house 
and store and shop. We shall see the little flags 
that friends on Memorial Day have placed on 
the graves of the dead. 

Let us now cross the seas, and we shall still 
find the flag in many a distant foreign harbor. 
It will be seen in the great cities of Europe and 
Asia, showing where American ambassadors and 
consuls and other agents of our government may 
be found by their countrymen. It will fly over 
grand hotels where American travellers are staying. 
It will be seen upon ships and steamers as men sail 
the distant seas. Wherever we see it a warm and 
friendly feeling thrills our hearts. 

What does the flag with its bright colors mean, 
that millions of children should salute it in their 

208 


THE FLAG 


209 






Our Flag 

How many different flags of the nations do you 
know? Is there any flag more beautiful than 
ours? What three flags do you like best? 


schools, and that grown men should be willing to 
take off their hats in its presence? 

The flag means the union of all our people 
throughout all our States and Territories. Whereas 







210 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


men in different nations once feared and fought 
each other, we now in America trust and help 
one another. The men of the South and the men 
of the North, the men of the East and the men 
of the West, all fly the same flag. It is a sign that 
we are one people. 

What do we wish the flag to tell us as often as 
we see it? We wish it to tell us that no one in 
America is alone or friendless. There is a kindly 
government with laws and officers, that will not let 
any one be oppressed. Once men could make slaves 
of their fellows. Nowhere to-day under our flag can 
any man be enslaved. We are pledged to give every 
one in the land justice and equal liberty. We are 
pledged to give all children a chance to be educated. 
The flag is the sign of our pledge to befriend one 
another. It is not cheap and easy to make all this 
true. We may not be sure yet that it is true. 
Are we sure that we treat our fellows and neigh¬ 
bors as we wish to be treated? If not, our flag 
does not tell our beautiful story of freedom or 
kindliness. Suppose we like to have others listen 
to what we say, but are'unwilling to hear them. 
Suppose we do not care when poor people, perhaps 
strangers, are sometimes abused in our land. We 
must not grow proud of our country, as if every¬ 
thing was already quite right. 


THE FLAG 


2 11 


What can the flag do for us, if we journey 
abroad and visit foreign lands? We have treaties 
with other peoples promising us that their laws 
and courts and police will protect us equally with 
their own people. Once strangers were liable to 
abuse wherever they travelled. Now, wherever our 
flag goes, it is a sign that our government will 
remember us. The lonely or sick American sailor 
stranded in Liverpool or Marseilles or Algiers, can 
find the American consul and get help to return to 
his home. Where the flag flies abroad, American 
women or children can get friendly advice. There 
is no government in the world which will not give 
a willing ear to the American consul or minister 
or ambassador in behalf of our citizens. We do 
not need to send soldiers, or to make threats to 
compel the other nations to protect our people. 
The other nation is sure to have citizens over here 
who sometimes get into trouble and need the good 
offices of our government. Whatever we ask of the 
other governments we must stand ready to do the 
same for them. 

The flag is not merely a sign that the govern¬ 
ment will help us at home and abroad. It is 
also a call and a command to every one of us to 
stand by the government. Suppose every citizen 
wanted the help of the government only for himself. 


212 


THE YOUNG CITIZEN 


Suppose all the people expected the government 
to provide for them. This would be as if every 
one in a house expected to be waited upon by the 
others. Who would do the work of the house, 

if every one thought only of what the others 

ought to do for him? 

The truth is, the government depends upon every 
one of us. The flag tells us not of a pledge that, 
some one else has made, but a pledge that we 
have made ourselves. When we look at the flag, 
we promise anew that we will stand by the com¬ 
mon country; we will try to be true and faithful 

citizens. We promise to do our work so well as 

to make the whole country richer and happier; 
we promise to live such useful lives that the next 
generation of children will have a nobler country 
to live in than we have had. We scorn, when we 
see the flag, to be idle and mean, or false and 
dishonest. We devote ourselves to America to 
make it the happiest land that the sun ever 
shone on. This is easy to promise but it is harder 
to perform! - 

The flag tells us one other message. It has been 
carried over fields of battle. But it is not a flag 
of war. It is a flag of peace. It does not mean 
hate to any other people. It is a sign of brother¬ 
hood and good will to all nations. We respect 


THE FLAG 


213 


the flags of other nations, which their people and 
their children love as we love ours. The old cruel 
way of the world was to conquer and oppress 
others; the new way is to make them our friends 
by our kindness, our justice, our faithfulness. We 
are pledged by our flag to the new way. Ameri¬ 
cans are pledged to make the world more pros¬ 
perous, happier and better. We can all say there¬ 
fore, in the good poet Longfellow’s lines, of the 
noble Union over which our flag flies: — 

Sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, — 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o’er our fears, 

Are all with thee,—are all with thee! 














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